Abstract
A fundamental study on ultraviolet ray (UV)-aided machining (U-RAM) was conducted to evaluate its applicability to the polishing of aluminum alloy. Qualitative analysis with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to estimate the chemical reaction induced on Al surfaces immersed in various solutions. Inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy (ICPS) was used for quantitative analysis of the amounts of oxidized/dissolved Al, Mg, and Fe. The following conclusions were obtained by investigation of the aluminum alloy polishing process. Aluminum does not dissolve in TiO2-H2O solution, whereas a small amount of Al dissolved into cathilon-H2O solution. Although only a small amount of Al dissolved in TiO2-cathilon-H2O solution in the absence of UV irradiation, the amount of Al dissolved increased slightly under UV irradiation with the formation of oxide, nitrogen oxide, and nitride on the Al surface. In addition, a small amount of aluminum chloride dissolved in TiO2-cathilon-H2O solution. An Al alloy (A5052) surface was made flat by polishing with TiO2-cathilon-H2O slurry under UV irradiation.
