ABSTRACT
Modern metal working industry has developed to the situation in which several factors have to be considered, such as costs, lead time from design to production, product quality, and machining/finishing of difficult to machine materials. The most labourintensive uncontrollable area in the manufacture of precision parts involves final machining (or finishing) operations (Walia 2009). The finishing operation sometimes may cost as high as 10-15% of the total production cost (Jain 2008). Hence, it is necessary to research finishing techniques in terms of minimizing cost and time. Further, Abrasive flow machining (AFM) as one of the most widely used abrasive-based surface finishing techniques has been studying for many years, and some progresses on AFM theory have been made. However, it is not so enough in that a multi-function intelligent control system on adjusting AFM process parameters automatically online is still not proposed. Therefore, it is of great practical and theoretical significance to review the research on AFM.
