Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2023), 36(12): 451–460

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
www.sciencedirect.com

A novel method of water bath heating assisted small

ball-end magnetorheological polishing for
hemispherical shell resonators
Jinchuan TIAN a, Mingjun CHEN b, Jian CHENG a, Henan LIU a,*

a
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
b
Center for Precision Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

Received 4 December 2022; revised 25 December 2022; accepted 18 March 2023

Available online 12 May 2023

KEYWORDS
Hemispherical shell res-
onator;
Magnetorheological fluid
temperature;
Material removal rate;
Optimization;
Small ball-end magnetorhe-
ological polishing
Abstract Hemispherical shell resonator (HSR) is the core component of hemispherical resonator
gyro. It is a w-shaped small-bore complex component with minimum curvature radius less than
3 mm. Thus, traditional polishing methods are difficult to polish it. Small ball-end magnetorheolog-
ical polishing method can polish the small components with complicated three-dimensional surface
and obtain non-destructive surface. Therefore, this method is suitable for polishing HSR. However,
the material removal rate of the ordinary small ball-end magnetorheological polishing is low, lead-
ing to long polishing time and low output of HSR. To solve this problem, a water bath heating
assisted small ball-end magnetorheological polishing method is proposed in this research. The influ-
ence rule of processing parameters on the material removal rate is studied experimentally. A set of
optimal processing parameters is obtained to maximize the material removal rate. Compared with
the ordinary method, the material removal rate of the new method can be improved by 143%. Sub-
sequently, an HSR is polished by the new method. The results show that the polishing time can be
reduced by 55%, and the polished surface roughness can reach 7.7 nm. The new method has the
great potential to be used in actual production to improve the polishing efficiency of HSR.
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Astronautics. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction cut off, and has the nuclear traversal capability. Therefore,
hemispherical resonator gyro has the great application advan-
Compared with laser gyro and fiber optic gyro, hemispherical tages in the aerospace fields such as long-life satellites and
resonator gyro has the advantages of simple structure, high strategic missiles. Hemispherical shell resonator (HSR) made
precision, small volume, long working life (more than 10 years), of fused silica is the core component of hemispherical res-
and being able to withstand large overload. It can maintain onator gyro. It is an irregular w-shaped small-bore complex
normal working condition for 15 min even if the power is component. The minimum curvature radius of concave surface
is less than 3 mm and the thickness of spherical shell is less
* Corresponding author. than 1 mm. Thus, the conventional grinding and polishing
E-mail address: liuhn@hit.edu.cn (H. LIU).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2023.05.003
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This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
452
method is difficult to meet the high-precision machining
requirements of the HSR.
In our previous researches, a permanent-magnet small ball-
end magnetorheological (MR) polishing method was proposed
to polish the HSR.1,2 The polishing tool is a small ball-end pol-
ishing head made of permanent magnet material. Different
from the material removal mechanism of traditional wheel-
type MR polishing, this method relies on the flow of MR fluid
to remove materials. In the polishing process, fresh MR fluid is
continuously supplied to the polishing zone. The MR fluid
flowing into the polishing zone is affected by the applied mag-
netic field of the polishing head. It adsorbs on the surface of
the polishing head and changes from flowing state to solid-
like state. Due to the high-speed rotation of the polishing head,
the shear stress is generated between the solid-like MR fluid
and the workpiece surface. When the shear stress is greater
than the yield stress of MR fluid, the MR fluid in contact with
the workpiece surface produces shear yielding and changes
from solid-like state to flowing state, forming a continuous
flowing ‘‘MR fluid film”. Under the action of magnetic field,
the magnetic particles in the MR fluid film are distributed close
to the polishing head surface, so as to occupy the space of non-
ferromagnetic abrasive particles and push the abrasive parti-
cles towards the workpiece surface. This not only makes the
workpiece surface subject to the normal force from the abra-
sive particles, but also greatly improves the abrasive particle
concentration on workpiece surface. With the flow of MR fluid
film and the action of normal force, these abrasive particles
continuously shear the workpiece surface at a certain speed,
so as to realize material removal,3 as shown in Fig. 1 in Sec-
tion 2.1. The diameter of the polishing head is 4 mm and the
length is 5 mm. Due to the small size of polishing head, it
can polish the concave surface with the minimum curvature
radius of HSR. Several hemispherical shell resonators were
successfully polished by using this method.4 However, the lim-
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of polishing experiment.
J. TIAN et al.
itation of the size and shape of the polishing head hinders the
increase of magnetic induction intensity and polishing relative
velocity, resulting in low material removal rate (MRR) during
polishing. Therefore, the polishing process of HSR is time-
consuming. This results in low output of HSR, which is diffi-
cult to meet the needs of large-scale applications.
Hence, there is an urgent need for an improved method of
small ball-end MR polishing to achieve high-efficiency and
high-surface-quality polishing. Ultrasonic vibration and chem-
ical action are used to assist MR polishing to improve the pol-
ishing MRR. Ultrasonic vibration can produce high-frequency
interaction between abrasive particles and workpiece sur-
face.5,6 Wang et al. 7 and Zhang et al. 8,9 proposed the
ultrasonic-magnetorheological compound (UMC) finishing.
Experimental results showed that the MRR of this method
was increased by 3.1 times. Jiang et al. 10 studied the ultrasonic
vibration-assisted magnetic compound fluid polishing. It was
found that the addition of ultrasonic vibration reduced the
polishing energy consumption, and the MRR was significantly
improved. Chemical action can etch or soften the surface of
workpiece, so that the material can be easily removed by abra-
sive particles.11–13 Zhang et al. 14 studied the effects of func-
tional alkali in magnetorheological fluid during polishing. It
was found that via using the sodium hydroxide base slurry,
the MRR was doubled. Lu et al. 15 studied the material
removal process of single-crystal SiC in chemical-
magnetorheological compound finishing. It was found that
the contribution of the chemical effect to material removal
was 3.74% to 26.22%. Moreover, chemical action is employed
to decrease surface roughness, and chemical mechanical pol-
ishing (CMP) is widely used in global planarization for brittle
materials.16,17 To solve the environmental pollution of tradi-
tional CMP,18 Zhang et al. developed a novel green CMP
for hard-brittle solids, such as diamond19 and sapphire,20 as
well as copper21 and alloys.22 Using the developed CMP,
A novel method of water bath heating
high-performance surfaces with atomic-level surface roughness
were achieved, for the use in semiconductor, aerospace and
optoelectronics industries.23 This green CMP method can dra-
matically remove the pollution to the environment and has a
great contribution to the conventional CMP and manufactur-
ing.24 However, in order to introduce these two assisted meth-
ods, the parts of polishing machine tool need to be redesigned
to improve corrosion resistance and prevent resonance, which
is very complex and expensive.
MR fluid is a typical non-Newtonian fluid. Its flow charac-
teristics are closely related to the temperature.25–27 Changing
the temperature can influence the viscosity and mechanical
properties of MR fluid,28,29 which can affect the MRR. How-
ever, there are few studies on improving the MRR of MR pol-
ishing by changing the temperature. In our previous research,
it was found that in a certain temperature range, increasing the
MR fluid temperature can reduce the viscosity of MR fluid,
which can reduce the flow resistance of MR fluid film. This
can not only increase the flow velocity of MR fluid film, that
is, increase the relative velocity when abrasive particles shear
the workpiece surface and the number of abrasive particles act-
ing on the workpiece surface per unit time, but also reduce the
shear stress. The increase of polishing relative velocity has a
promoting effect on improving the MRR, but the decrease
of shear stress has an inhibitory effect. The promoting effect
can exceed the inhibitory effect, so as to improve the MRR.3
This indicates that the heating-assisted polishing method has
the great potential to improve the polishing efficiency of
HSR. Therefore, in this research, a water bath heating assisted
magnetorheological polishing (WBHAMRP) method for small
ball-end permanent-magnet polishing tools is proposed. The
influence rule of MR fluid temperature and other processing
parameters on the MRR is studied experimentally, and the
mathematical model of MRR is established. In order to max-
imize the MRR, a set of optimal processing parameters is
obtained by optimizing the mathematical model with response
surface methodology. In order to verify the improvement effect
of polishing efficiency, an HSR is polished by using the newly
proposed method.
2. Experimental equipment and method
2.1. Experimental equipment
In order to accurately calculate the MRR, the workpieces used
in the single-factor experiment and optimization experiment
are fused silica rods with a length of 50 mm and a diameter
of 6 mm. An HSR after ultra-precision grinding is used for res-
onator polishing experiment. The water-based MR fluid used
in the experiment is self-prepared. The magnetic particles are
carbonyl iron powders. The abrasive particles are cerium oxide
particles. Hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose is the stabilizer of
the MR fluid. The ultra-precision machine tool is specially
self-developed for polishing HSR and other small rotating
body workpieces.30 The MR fluid circulation equipment and
process are shown in Fig. 1(a). After flowing out of the stirrer,
the MR fluid is transported to the polishing zone through a
section of silicone hose. A part of the hose is immersed in
the water bath kettle. The length of the immersed hose is about
1.5 m. When the low-temperature MR fluid flows into the hose
immersed in the water bath kettle, the heated water transfers
453
heat to the MR fluid through the hose, thus increasing the
MR fluid temperature. The temperature of MR fluid flowing
into the polishing zone is measured by the probe thermometer.
In the polishing process, the water of MR fluid is replenished
by dripping device to keep the mixture ratio of MR fluid
stable. The polishing process is shown in Fig. 1(c). The mate-
rial removal mechanism of permanent-magnet small ball-end
MR polishing is shown in Fig. 1(d).
2.2. Experimental method
Single-factor polishing experiment was carried out to study the
effects of the processing parameters on MRR, so as to select
the appropriate parameter range for the optimization of pro-
cessing parameters. The processing parameters’ range of
single-factor experiment are shown in Table 1.
Increasing the workpiece rotation speed makes the MR
fluid attached to the workpiece splash everywhere. It is not
conducive to the stable flow and recovery of MR fluid, thus
affecting the stability of material removal process. Therefore,
the workpiece rotation speed is selected as 120 r/min. The pol-
ishing time is 20 min. The temperature of laboratory is 20 ± 0.
5 °C. Therefore, 20 °C is regarded as the MR fluid temperature
of ordinary MR polishing. If the working temperature of pol-
ishing head exceeds 80 °C, the magnetic induction intensity will
decline irreversibly, thus reducing the MRR. Therefore, the
maximum temperature of the MR fluid is limited to 60 °C.
Before the polishing process, the temperature of the water bath
is adjusted until the error between the measured MR fluid tem-
perature and the target MR fluid temperature is less than
0.5 °C.
The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is used to opti-
mize processing parameters and maximize the MRR. The
RSM experiment is designed by the central composite design
(CCD) method and has three factors and five levels, as shown
in Table 2. Moreover, the MR fluid temperature, polishing
head rotation speed and polishing gap are coded as A, B and
C respectively to nondimensionalize the actual processing
parameters. The MRR is taken as the response. Center points
are the midpoint of each coded factor range: (0, 0, 0). In the
RSM experiment, center points are repeated 6 times to get a
good estimate of pure error. The polishing time of each exper-
iment is 20 min.
Based on the results of RSM experiment, the mathematical
model of MRR was obtained by polynomial fitting. A set of
Table 1 Experimental parameters of single-factor polishing.
Item Polishing head Polishing MR fluid
rotation speed gap(mm) temperature
(r/min) (°C)
Polishing head 5000–13000 0.08 20 or 50
rotation speed
experiment
Polishing gap 5000 0.04–0.20 20 or 50
experiment
MR fluid 5000 0.08 20–60
temperature
experiment
454 J. TIAN et al.

depth corresponding to the (i + 1)th point on the profile (mm),

Table 2 Experimental parameters of RSM.
Actual factor
MR fluid temperature t
(°C)
Polishing head rotation
speed n (r/min)
Polishing gap h (mm)
s is the number of data points on the profile, and T is the pol-
Actual level Coded Coded ishing time of the polished pit (min).
factor level The length of the polished pit along the workpiece rotation
20, 30, 40, 50, 60 A 2, –1, axis is about 1500 lm. The spacing of adjacent abscissa data
0, 1, 2 points measured by the white light interferometer is only
5000, 7000, 9000, B 2, –1, 0.815 lm, which is far less than the length of the polished
11000, 13000 0, 1, 2 pit. Therefore, the calculation result is reliable.
0.04, 0.08, 0.12, C 2, –1,
0.16, 0.20 0, 1, 2
3. Results and discussion

3.1. Single-factor study of processing parameters

optimal processing parameters was obtained by optimizing the

mathematical model. The accuracy of the optimization results The MRR in the polishing process mainly depends on the pol-
was verified by polishing experiment. ishing relative velocity and shear stress, as shown in31,32
MRR ¼ Ksv ð3Þ
2.3. Calculation method of MRR where K is coefficient of correction (mm /kPa), s is the shear
2

stress (kPa), and v is the polishing relative velocity (mm/min).

The relative position of the polishing head to the workpiece
remains unchanged during the polishing process and then an
annular pit is polished on the surface of the workpiece, as
shown in Fig. 2(a). A Zygo NewView 8200 white light interfer-
ometer is used to measure the 3D morphology of the pit and
extract the 2D section profile along the workpiece rotation axis
direction, as shown in Fig. 2(b) and (c).
With the differential method, the 2D contour is divided into
several small areas according to the adjacent abscissa points,
as shown in Fig. 3. The material removal volume of each small
area is calculated separately. By accumulating the material
removal volume of all small areas, the approximate value of
the total removal volume is obtained.
The total material removal volume can be calculated by Eq.
(1), and the MRR can be calculated according to Eq. (2).
X
s1
V¼ pr2 ðxiþ1  xi Þ  pðr  Hiþ1 Þ2 ðxiþ1  xi Þ
i¼1
V and then decreases with the increase of polishing gap, as shown
MRR ¼
T in Fig. 4(b). Compared with the ordinary MR polishing
where r is the radius of workpiece (mm), xi is the abscissa value
of the ith point on the profile (mm), xi+1 is the abscissa value
of the (i + 1)th point on the profile (mm), Hi+1 is the removal
At the same temperature, the MRR firstly increases and
then decreases with the increase of rotation speed in the range
of 5000 to 13,000 r/min, as shown in Fig. 4(a). When the pol-
ishing head rotation speed is slow, the polishing relative veloc-
ity and the shear stress between the abrasive particles and the
workpiece surface are low, resulting in low MRR. When the
polishing head rotation speed is too high, the centrifugal force
of the MR fluid adsorbed on the polishing head exceeds the
adsorption force of the magnetic field. The MR fluid contain-
ing abrasive particles flows away from the polishing head,
which hinders the improvement of MRR. Therefore, there is
an optimal polishing head rotation speed at each temperature
to maximize the MRR. Moreover, at the same rotation speed,
compared with the ordinary MR polishing method (20 °C), the
MRR of WBHAMRP method (50 °C) is increased by 64.6%,
87.8%, 95.0%, 89.2% and 106.1%, respectively. This indicates
ð1Þ that increasing the MR fluid temperature can significantly
improve the MRR at each rotation speed.
In the range of 0.04 to 0.2 mm, the MRR firstly increases
ð2Þ
method (20 °C), the MRR of WBHAMRP method (50 °C)
is increased by 70.2%, 64.6%, 72.9%, 90.0% and 171.9%,
respectively. When the polishing gap is narrow, the volume

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of measurement process.

A novel method of water bath heating 455

Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of MRR calculation.

of MR fluid flowing through the polishing gap per unit time is

less, resulting in the low number of abrasive particles shearing
on the workpiece surface. It hinders the improvement of
MRR. The excessive polishing gap leads to the reduction of
the magnetic induction intensity on workpiece surface and
the shear rate of MR fluid. This hinders the increase of shear
stress, which is not conducive to improving the MRR. There-
fore, there is an optimal polishing gap to maximize the MRR.
In the range of 20 to 60 °C, the MRR continues to improve
with the increase of MR fluid temperature, as shown in Fig. 4
(c). Compared with the ordinary MR polishing method
(20 °C), the MRR of the WBHAMRP method (30 to 60 °C)
increases by 36.8%, 53.2%, 62.8% and 73.3%, respectively.
Increasing the MR fluid temperature can reduce the viscosity
of MR fluid. For example, the zero-field viscosity of MR fluid
decreases exponentially with the increase of temperature.
When the MR fluid temperature increases from 20 °C to
60 °C, the zero-field viscosity of MR fluid decreases from
5.11 Pas to 0.64 Pas.3 This can reduce the flow resistance of
MR fluid film and improve its fluidity. The polishing relative
velocity of abrasive particles on workpiece surface increases,
which improves the MRR. The single-factor experiment results
confirm that the WBHAMRP method has a higher MRR com-
pared with the ordinary MR polishing method. Within the
selected processing parameters ranges, there are the optimal
process parameters to maximize the MRR.

3.2. RSM experiment and ANOVA

The RSM experiment and the results are shown in Table 3.

The mathematical model was fitted by RSM experimental
results. The mathematical model composed of actual factors
of processing parameters is shown in Eq. (4), which can be used
to predict the MRR under various processing parameters. The
mathematical model composed of coded factors can be used to
conduct the analysis of variance (ANOVA), as shown in Eq. (5).
MRR ¼ 0:039988 þ 7:59  104 t þ 5:45134  106 n
þ0:168597h  6:4375  109 tn  6:78  104 th
4:51562  106 nh  4:21477  106 t2
2:39119  1010 n2  0:571236h2
ð4Þ

MRR ¼ ð149 þ 28A þ 7B  15C  AB  3AC  4BC

4
 4A  10B  9C Þ  10
2 2 2
ð5Þ
Fig. 4 Effect rules of processing parameters on MRR.
456 J. TIAN et al.

Table 3 RSM experiment.

Sequence Coded factor Actual factor Response
A B C t(°C) n(r/min) h(mm) MRR(mm3/min)
1 2 0 0 60 9000 0.12 0.0184
2 0 2 0 40 13000 0.12 0.0126
3 0 0 2 40 9000 0.2 0.0078
4 0 0 0 40 9000 0.12 0.0147
5 1 1 1 50 11000 0.08 0.0182
6 0 0 0 40 9000 0.12 0.0149
7 0 0 2 40 9000 0.04 0.0145
8 1 1 1 50 11000 0.16 0.0141
9 0 2 0 40 5000 0.12 0.0093
10 1 1 1 50 7000 0.08 0.0162
11 2 0 0 20 9000 0.12 0.0078
12 0 0 0 40 9000 0.12 0.0140
13 1 1 1 30 11000 0.08 0.0115
14 1 1 1 50 7000 0.16 0.0143
15 1 1 1 30 7000 0.08 0.0097
16 1 1 1 30 7000 0.16 0.0082
17 0 0 0 40 9000 0.12 0.0150
18 0 0 0 40 9000 0.12 0.0151
19 0 0 0 40 9000 0.12 0.0155
20 1 1 1 30 11000 0.16 0.0092

where t is MR fluid temperature (°C), n is polishing head rota- V.” is less than 10%, indicating that the experimental data are
tion speed (r/min), h is polishing gap (mm), A represents MR accurate and reliable. Hence, this model can accurately
fluid temperature, B represents polishing head rotation speed, describe the relationship between MRR and processing
and C represents polishing gap. parameters.
The ANOVA results of the mathematical model are shown
in Table 4. 3.3. Response surface image analysis
The ‘‘P-value” of the model is less than 0.0001, indicating
that the mathematical model can well reflect the relationship The RSM can reflect the influence of processing parameters on
between the processing parameters and the MRR. The ‘‘P- the MRR through visual graphics. The 3D response surface
value” of A, B and C are less than 0.01, indicating that the pro- image and the 2D contour map are shown in Fig. 5.
cessing parameters have a significant impact on the MRR. The Fig. 5(a) shows that when the MR fluid temperature is con-
‘‘P-value” of the lack of fit is much greater than 0.05, implying stant, the MRR has the maximum value under the suitable
that the lack of fit is not significant relative to the pure error. polishing gap and polishing head rotation speed. Fig. 5(b)
This indicates that the experimental error is small, the repeata- shows that when the polishing gap is unchanged, the MRR
bility is good, and this model can fit the experimental data increases with the increase of MR fluid temperature, and
well. The ‘‘R-squared”, ‘‘Adj R-squared” and ‘‘Pred R- increases first and then decreases with the increase of polishing
squared” are close to 1, indicating that the model has a good head rotation speed. Keeping the MR fluid temperature con-
fitting degree. The ‘‘Adeq precision” is greater than 4, indicat- stant, the MRR has the maximum value at the appropriate
ing that the model has an adequate signal to respond. The ‘‘C. polishing head rotation speed. Fig. 5(c) shows that when the
polishing head rotation speed is unchanged, the MRR
increases with the increase of MR fluid temperature, and
Table 4 Results of ANOVA. increases first and then decreases with the increase of polishing
gap. Keeping the MR fluid temperature constant, the MRR is
Item Value
maximized under the appropriate polishing gap. In conclusion,
Model’s P-value <0.0001 a reasonable selection of polishing processing parameters can
A’s P-value <0.0001 maximize the MRR.
B’s P-value 0.0007
C’s P-value <0.0001
Lack of fit’s P-value 0.3364
3.4. Processing parameter optimization and verification
R-squared 0.98
Adj R-squared 0.97 The range of processing parameters in Section 3.3 was opti-
Pred R-squared 0.91 mized to obtain a set of optimal processing parameters to max-
Adeq precision 27.7 imize the MRR of the WBHAMRP method. In order to
C.V. 4.42% contrast with the WBHAMRP method, the processing param-
eters of ordinary MR polishing method were also optimized to
A novel method of water bath heating 457

Fig. 5 3D response surface image and 2D contour.

reach maximum MRR, as shown in Table 5. The polishing
verification experiment was carried out with the optimal
processing parameters. Since the rotation speed of the polish-
ing head spindle could only be selected as an integral multiple
of 1000 r/min, the polishing head rotation speed was selected
as 10,000 r/min.
As can be seen from Table 5, the MRR of WBHAMRP
method can reach 0.022 mm3/min. The maximum MRR of
the ordinary MR polishing method in the previous research
is 0.009 mm3/min. Compared with the ordinary MR polishing
method, the MRR of the WBHAMRP method is improved by
143%. Furthermore, the prediction errors of the mathematical
458 J. TIAN et al.

Table 5 Optimal processing parameters and verification results.

Method Parameter t(°C) n(r/min) h(mm) MRR(mm3/min)
WBHAMRP Optimal 60 9902 0.07 0.0201
Actual 60 ± 0.5 10000 0.07 0.0218
Ordinary MR polishing Optimal 20 10229 0.10 0.0081
Actual 20 ± 0.5 10000 0.10 0.0090

model are 8.5% and 11.1% respectively. The results show that
the optimization result of the processing parameters is accu-
rate, which indicates that the MRR model is reliable. The set
of optimal processing parameters can maximize the MRR.
3.5. Polishing experiment of HSR
In order to further verify the improvement effect of
WBHAMRP method on the polishing efficiency of HSR, this
method was used to polish an HSR after ultra-precision grind-
ing. The polishing processing parameters were the group of
optimal processing parameters obtained in Section 3.4. The
polishing time was measured by an electronic timer. The pol-
ishing process is shown in Fig. 6.
After 34 h of polishing, the HSR surface changes from
translucent to transparent. The polished surface is smooth
and has no obvious residual defects, as shown in Fig. 7. It is
worth noting that in the previous research,4 the polishing time
without water bath heating assistance is up to 75 h. Compared
with the polishing time of the ordinary small ball-end MR pol-
ishing method, the polishing time of WBHAMRP method is
reduced by 55%.

Fig. 6 Polishing process of HSR.

Fig. 7 Comparison diagram of HSR surface.

A novel method of water bath heating
Fig. 8 Surface roughness measurement results.
Moreover, the polished surface roughness of the HSR was
measured by the white light interferometer, as shown in Fig. 8.
The ground surface roughness Sa is 145 nm, and the polished
surface roughness Sa is 7.7 nm. In the previous research, the
polished surface roughness of the HSR without water bath
heating assistance is 10.7 nm.4 Compared with the ordinary
small ball-end MR polishing method, the polished surface
roughness of WBHAMRP method is slightly reduced. This
may be because the water bath heating increases the polishing
relative velocity of the abrasive particles. The number of abra-
sive particles acting on the workpiece surface per unit time also
increases, which improves the shear frequency between abra-
sive particles and the workpiece surface, thus promoting the
removal of micro peaks on the surface. This indicates that
the WBHAMRP method can obtain the smooth and high-
quality polished surface while maintaining the maximum
MRR.
4. Conclusions
In this work, the WBHAMRP method is proposed to improve
the polishing efficiency of HSR by increasing the MR fluid
temperature. The conclusions can be drawn as follows.
(1) Under different polishing gap and polishing head rota-
tion speed, increasing the temperature of MR fluid flow-
ing into the polishing zone by water bath heating can
significantly improve the MRR. In the experimental
temperature range, the MRR increases with the increase
of MR fluid temperature.
(2) Through the optimization of processing parameters, the
maximum MRR of WBHAMRP method can reach
0.022 mm3/min, which is 143% higher than that of ordi-
nary MR polishing.
(3) Under the optimal processing parameters, the polishing
time of HSR can be reduced by 55% using the
WBHAMRP method, and the polished surface rough-
ness Sa can reach 7.7 nm.
Moreover, this method does not need to redesign the exist-
ing polishing machine tool, and the application cost is low.
Therefore, the WBHAMRP method has the great potential
to be used in actual production to improve the polishing effi-
ciency of HSR. This is beneficial to increase the output of
459
HSR and expand the application range of hemispherical res-
onator gyro.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (No. 2022YFB3403600), the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.
52293403) and Self-Planned Task of State Key Laboratory
of Robotics and System (HIT) (No. SKLRS202204C).
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