Texture Formation and Surface Characteristics in an Intermittent Burnishing Process Utilizing Plastic Flow of Surface Material

Abstract A texturing technique is proposed in which a burnishing tool with a hemispherical tip intermittently contacts a target surface, inducing plastic flow in the surface material to generate a periodic microtopography. The mechanism underlying texture formation in the intermittent burnishing process is elucidated, and the fuctional viability of the resulting textured surface is assessed through friction and wear tests. The burnishing tool with a hemispherical tip was rotated eccentrically from the spindle of a five-axis machining center, facilitating intermittent plastic deformation of the target surface material over multiple tool rotations, thereby producing fine dimples on the surface. Burnishing experiments on an aluminum alloy revealed the effects of tool tip radius and eccentricity on the resulting texture morphology. The dimpled texture produced by a single tool-surface contact exhibited an elliptical shape, with ellipticity controlled by the tool tip radius and eccentricity. The mechanism governing textured surface formation through plastic flow was elucidated by creating overlapping textured regions at equal pitch intervals. High compressive residual stresses were induced on the textured surface. Friction and wear tests using the ball-on-disk method demonstrated that textured surfaces, created under optimized burnishing conditions effectively mitigated the aggressiveness of the sliding mating material.