The tool wear characteristics of the hydrodynamic polishing process under v
arious lubricating conditions are investigated in this study. Both the tool
wear and corresponding machining rate were experimentally examined. It is
shown that both the tool waviness and radius of tool curvature changed and
had specific trends in the wear process. Especially, the wear rate of tool
under semi-contact lubricating condition was not necessarily larger than th
at under The non-contact one. The experimental data indicated that the effe
cts of tool wear on machining rate highly depended on the lubricating condi
tion of tool. The trend of machining rate versus accumulated machining time
under non-contact lubricating condition was very different from that under
the semi-contact one. The study showed that some of the qualitative relati
onships between tool wear and machining rate could be properly explained fr
om the elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication theorem and the previously proposed
machinging theorem for hydrodynamic polishing process (C) 2000 Elsevier Sci
ence S.A. All rights reserved.