ABSTRACT
Modern manufacturing systems and "factories of the future" can no longer use standard commodity brushes and buffs on sophisticated machine tools to perform critical, uniform-quality, repetitive, precision material removal and finishing of expensive, microtoleranced, super-alloy and advanced composite piece parts. Applied science and engineering technologies are being developed and are needed to understand and apply the many emerging abrasive minerals and materials that will be used in the coming decade. Flexible abrasive finishing tools are not a panacea for all deburring problems. They are reliable, high-performance tools that produce consistent quality and cost-effective results when properly engineered for the specific applications intended. The change will be evolutionary, gaining momentum as new finishing tools are continually being developed, installed, and becoming a productive part of flexible manufacturing systems, computer automated machine tools, advanced machining systems, machine cells, special machines, and numerical and computer numerical controlled machine tools.
