The Impact of Steel Microstructure on Surface Roughness due to Grinding

PROJECT NUMBER: 74

AUTHOR: Heather Hoffman, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering | MENTOR: Kip Findley, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering

ABSTRACT

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This project was designed to test the effect of steel microstructure on roughness after machining. Three steel specimens were used for this objective: a 1037 steel along with two microalloyed steels. A microindenter was used to obtain hardness values of each condition. The 1037 was put through two heat treatments resulting in different microstructures. The samples were both heated to 900°C; one was quenched in water and the other air cooled resulting in different sized grains and mixtures of ferrite and pearlite. The as received microalloyed steels, the as received 1037, and the samples from the two heat treatments were all polished using the auto-polisher to 1 micron with controlled settings for load and grinding or polishing speed. An optical profilometer was then used to measure the surface roughness of each. The 1037 that had been heat treated to 900°C and then air cooled had the least hard microstructure and had the most surface roughness. Future work would involve expanding the heat treatments to include heating the microalloyed steels to the 900°C, quenching and air cooling, along with heating all samples to other temperatures for specific microstructures. Further work would revolve around refining the controlled experimental grinding procedure.

VISUAL PRESENTATION

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

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Heather Hoffman is metallurgical and materials engineering student in her junior year. She is also pursuing a minor in public affairs through the McBride Honors Program. This project was her first foray into undergraduate research with the MME program and in the future she would like to do more research within this realm.

Sponsored by Phillips 66