Overview of Polishing Aluminium Profiles

//Overview of Polishing Aluminium Profiles
Overview of Polishing Aluminium Profiles2018-05-11T08:01:45+00:00

Project Description

Electro-Chemical Polishing Aluminium Profile
Electro-Chemical Polishing Aluminium Profile

The general engineering application of wrought aluminium alloy material or building aluminium profile is the process of the semi-finished product. Aluminium extrusion profile manufacturers are generally able to directly put the profiles into anodise production line for anodising. Obtained anodised film has the good protective properties in many engineering applications, which basically achieves uniform appearance requirements. However, if mechanically polished aluminium work-piece is directly anodised, only the smooth anodise oxide film could be obtained, but fails to get the coating film of high reflective.

Chemical polishing and electrochemical polishing, as an advanced finishing method, can remove slight mould marks and scratches on the surface of aluminium products; Both can also remove the friction bands, thermal deformation layer and anodised film layer that may be formed in mechanical polishing. After chemical or electrochemical polishing, the rough surface of aluminium work-piece tends to be smooth and shiny as a mirror, which improves the decorative effect of the aluminium products (such as reflected performance, brightness, etc.). It can also give higher value-added commercial, satisfy the demand of aluminium products with the bright surface. Therefore, chemical polishing or electro-chemical polishing treatment is needed pre-processing so as to meet the special surface requirement of smooth, uniform and bright.

Electro-polishing Aluminium Profile -1
Electro-polishing Aluminium Profile -2

Chemical polishing and electro-chemical polishing can give aluminium profile a very shiny surface, but in terms of polishing, chemical polishing (or electro-chemical polishing) are fundamentally different from mechanical polishing:

Mechanical polishing is the use of physical tools to make aluminium surface plastic deformation by high-speed cutting and grinding, forcing the convex part of the surface to fill in the concave part, thus aluminium profile surface roughness is reduced and smoothed. However, mechanical polishing could cause the damage to metal surface crystallisation, even produced plastic deformation layer and tissue change layer due to local heating.

Chemical polishing is a kind of chemical corrosion in special conditions, the process is that convex parts of aluminium profile surface are dissolving prior to the concave areas by controlling the selective dissolution, and finally to achieve the goal of surface smooth and bright.

The process of electro-chemical polishing, also known as electropolishing, is similar to chemical polishing which makes the surface smooth and bright by controlling the selective dissolution. Aluminium profile is immersed in a prepared electrolytic solution as an anode, and corrosion resistant material with good conductive as a cathode, according to the principle of electro-chemical tip discharge.

In industrial production, the primary purpose of chemical polishing or electro-chemical polishing is to replace the mechanical polishing to obtain the smooth and bright surface; the second is to use chemical polishing or electro-chemical polishing to obtain a very high spectacular reflectance of aluminium and aluminium parts.