Investigation into levitating polishing disc used for flat surface finishing

Abstract

The paper presents a new type of flat surface polishing device. The polishing disc rotates using the pressure of compressed air. The polishing disc has a special geometry, wherein it has holes for flow turbulence minimisation in the air pressure areas of the boundary. The influence of the hole inclination angle on the rotational speed of the disk and the system efficiency was studied experimentally and numerically. It was established that the optimal inclination angle is a 20° angle that results in the maximum efficiency of the proposed system. In the experiment, three polishing discs with hole inclination angles of 0°, 20°, and 30° were studied; the discs were rotated using four air pressure values: 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 MPa. It was found that the optimal inclination angle of holes was 20° and that the fastest rotational speed, i.e. 1900 1/min, was reached at a maximum air pressure of 0.5 MPa.