Sugino Corporation

Sugino Cavitation Abrasive Surface Finishing AM Effectiveness & Optimization

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) has made it possible to produce metal parts with complex internal channels, hollow features, and other geometries that were difficult or impossible to create with conventional machining, but these parts often have internal contamination and rough surfaces that limit their usefulness. This project explored Sugino’s Cavitation Abrasive Surface Finishing (CASF) as a way to improve those rough surfaces in LPBF titanium parts and to better define where the process is most effective. The effort focused on building comparative data for multiple alloys, including titanium, Inconel, stainless steel, and aluminum, and on identifying treatment conditions that improved surface finish without reaching saturation or overtreatment. The student team also examined whether combining CASF with a workplace-safe, non-toxic chemical fluid could further remove additive manufacturing debris and smooth internal surface texture, and included initial scoping of how the process might treat blind internal passageways and cavities where abrasive flow was constrained. Together, the project aimed to establish a clearer testing and optimization basis for finishing complex additively manufactured metal features that had previously been difficult to access and improve.