VERIFICATION OF ROUGHNESS IN A PROTOTYPE OF A WETBLASTING SURFACE FINISHING PROCESS ON AISI 304 STAINLESS STEEL.

Abstract

Stainless steel is a material widely used in
various applications, and some of these applications
have specific requirements in terms of roughness
and surface finish. In the particular case of the food
industry, food process equipment manufacturing
organizations have deficiencies in obtaining
recommended roughness values that comply with
existing regulations.
To produce surfaces with the right
roughness, one of the methods to perform this
the finishing process is wet blasting, with this process
characters can be obtained with a roughness such
that they contribute to meeting the necessary
conditions of safety and that prevent the adhesion
of bacteria.
The company Ingeniar Inox SAS
through the formulation of project SENNOVA
- Minciencias para la Innovación carried out
a functional prototype of a cabin for the Wet
blasting process including this methodology in the
production process and carrying out laboratory tests
with the support of Tecnoparque SENA Pereira
and GIMI Grupo de Investigaciones en Materiales
de Ingeniería UTP applying the tests on samples in
a function with defined parameters and finding a
satisfactory average roughness result of 0.213 µm
which is in the recommended range.