Hydrodynamic effect polishing characteristics of ultra-smooth surfaces of optical components

Hydrodynamic effect polishing can achieve non-contact micro removal based on fluid shear effect, and can obtain ultra-smooth surface with roughness below 1 nm, which has good application prospects in the field of advanced optical and microelectronic material processing. In this paper, the fluid-driven polishing ball is designed based on the sphere elastic emission processing method, and the fluid velocity as well as the pressure and shear force distribution on the surface of the workpiece are analyzed by the simulation of the flow field in the polishing area with Fluent software.Three parameters, such as polishing gap, tool ball diameter and spindle speed, were used to investigate the laws of their effects on the maximum pressure and shear force applied to the workpiece surface. A single-factor polishing test was designed for parameter optimization, and a small-diameter (20 mm × 20 mm) polishing test was carried out, and the results of workpiece surface roughness RMS decreased from 16.939 nm to 2.467 nm, and the preliminary experiments showed the feasibility of this processing method in the application of optical components.