Experimental investigation of the influence of burnishing tool passes on surface roughness and hardness of brass specimens

Abstract

The process of burnishing is performed by applying a highly polished and hardened ball or roller with external force onto the surface of a cylindrical work piece. The burnishing process increases the surface hardness of the work piece, which in turn improves wear resistance, increases corrosion resistance, improves tensile strength, maintains dimensional stability and improves the fatigue strength by inducing residual compressive stresses in the surface of the work piece. In the present experimental work, both ball and roller burnishing tools are used. Experiments are conducted to study the performance of the ball and roller burnishing tools on lathe, along with the influence of number of burnishing tool passes on the surface roughness and surface hardness of brass specimens. The results revealed that improvements in the surface finish and increase in the surface hardness are obtained by the increase of the number of burnishing tool passes in both ball burnishing and roller burnishing on the brass specimens.