Characteristics of Surface Topography after Rolling Burnishing of EM AW-AlCu4MgSi(A) Aluminium Alloy

This paper characterizes surface topographies produced by medium milling of EM AW-AlCu4MgSi(A) aluminium alloy in hardened state T451 using a ball-end cutter of 8 mm diameter and subsequent finish by roller burnishing using a Si3N4 nitride ceramic ball of 8mm diameter. It was revealed that ball burnishing operations performed on curvilinear milled surfaces allow obtaining the machined surfaces of high quality and exceptional smoothness with different textures and, as a result, ensuring demanded functional properties such as fatigue strength, bearing properties and contact strength [1]. It was experimentally verified that precision ball burnishing performed with a low stepover of 0.04mm produced a very smooth with the Sa roughness of about 0.02 µm characteristic for polishing.