Surface finishing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Surface finishing is used to describe a number of industrial processes that can be applied to improve the surface of a manufactured item. The major reason to apply these processes is to improve appearance, corrosion protection, wear resistance and friction control also are areas where performance can be enhanced by these treatments. In limited cases some of these techniques can be used to restore original dimensions to salvage or repair an item.

Generally, surface finishing consists of one of the following:

• Removing material, or reshaping the item
• Adding material to the item's surface, or chemically altering it

[edit] Adding and altering

• Blanching
• Case hardening (typically hardening affects the material throughout; case hardening only affects the metal's surface)
• Gilding
• Powder coating
• Painting
• Passivation
  • Anodizing
  • Bluing
  • Chromate conversion coating
  • Parkerizing (also called phosphating)
  • Plasma electrolytic oxidation
• Plasma spraying
• Thin-film deposition
  • Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
  • Galvanization - includes electroplating, electrophoretic deposition (EPD), and hot-dip galvanizing
  • Sputtering
  • Physical vapor deposition (PVD)
• Vacuum plating

[edit] Removing and reshaping

• Buffing
• Chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP)
• Electropolishing
• Flame polishing
• Gas cluster ion beam
• Machining
• Pickling
• Sandblasting
• Shot peening

[edit] See also

• Surface engineering