Title: A novel polishing method using soluble fixed soft abrasive film

Authors: Zhaozhong Zhou; Kaiping Feng; Julong Yuan

Addresses: College of Mechanical Engineering, Quzhou University, Quzhou 324000, China ' College of Mechanical Engineering, Quzhou University, Quzhou 324000, China ' Key Laboratory of Special Purpose Equipment and Advanced Processing, Technology of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China

Abstract: A novel polishing method using soluble fixed soft abrasive film is proposed. During polishing process, the binder material in surface layer of the polishing film can be dissolved by polishing liquid, the worn abrasives are detached and the fresh abrasives are exposed. This polishing film uses alcohol-soluble polyacrylate as binder material. In this paper, the developed polishing film sample was made and polishing experiment was carried out to study the performance of using novel soluble fixed soft abrasive film to polish the end-face of optic fibre connector, which used 20% aqueous ethanol as polishing liquid. The experimental result showed that the roughness of the optic fibre connector end-face decreased from nearly Ra = 12.95 nm to Ra = 4.72 nm in 45 seconds; return loss of the optic fibre connector increased from 31 dB to 42 dB; insertion loss of the optic fibre connector was under 0.1 dB and the lifecycle of the polishing film was extended to 20 times.

Keywords: soluble fixed soft abrasive film; polishing process; alcohol-soluble polyacrylate; optical fibre connectors; insertion loss; polishing film.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNM.2015.071927

International Journal of Nanomanufacturing, 2015 Vol.11 No.3/4, pp.194 - 206

Received: 21 Nov 2014
Accepted: 19 Jun 2015
Published online: 23 Sep 2015 *

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