Papers by Author: Kai Rickens

Abstract: This paper presents advanced tools for ultra precision grinding which offer a high wear resistance and can be used to generate high-quality parts with an ultraprecise surface finish. The first approach features defined dressed, coarse-grained, single layered, metal bonded diamond grinding wheels. These grinding wheels are called Engineered Grinding Wheels and have been dressed by an adapted conditioning process which leads to uniform abrasive grain protrusion heights and flattened grains. This paper shows the results from grinding optical glasses with such Engineered Grinding Wheels regarding the specific forces and the surface roughness. The results show that the cutting mechanism turns into ductile removal and optical surfaces are achievable. On the other hand, the specific normal force F´_n increases due to increased contact area of the flattened diamond grains. It is shown that the topography of the Engineered Grinding Wheels has a strong beneficial influence on surface roughness. The second new tool for ultra precision grinding is made of a CVD (Chemical Vapour Deposition) poly-crystalline diamond layer with sharp edges of micrometre-sized diamond crystallites as a special type of abrasive. The sharp edges of the crystallites act as cutting edges which can be used for grinding. It is shown that by using CVD-diamond-coated grinding wheels a high material removal rate and a high surface finish with surface roughness in the nanometre range can be achieved. The CVD-diamond layers exhibit higher wear resistance compared to conventional metal and resin bonded diamond wheels. In conclusion, this paper shows that not only conventional fine grained, multi-layered resinoid diamond grinding wheels but also coarse-grained and binderless CVD-coated diamond grinding wheels can be applied to machine brittle and hard materials by ultra precision grinding.

Abstract: In order to realize ductile machining of optical glasses using mono-layer nickel electroplated coarse-grained diamond grinding wheel, a novel conditioning technique features using a copper bonded diamond grinding wheels of 15m grain size dressed by ELID (electrolytic inprocess dressing) to condition the 46m grain sized diamond wheel has been developed. During the conditioning process, a force transducer was used to monitor the conditioning force, a coaxial optical distance measurement system was used to in-situ monitor the modified wheel surface status. White-light interferometry (WLI), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize the conditioned wheel surface status as well as the ground optical glass surface topography correspondingly. The experimental result indicates that a minimized wheel radial run-out error of less than 2μm as well as the top-flattened diamond grains of constant wheel peripheral envelop profile were generated on a 5-axis ultra-precision machine tool. The grinding experiment proved that the well conditioned 46μm coarse-grained diamond wheel can be used in realizing the ductile grinding of optical glass BK7, which indicates that the newly developed conditioning technique is feasible and applicable to introduce the coarse-grained diamond wheels into precision machining of brittle and hard-to-machine materials.

Abstract: This paper aims to evaluate the surface and sub-surface integrity of optical glasses which were correspondingly machined by coarse and fine-grained diamond grinding wheels on Tetraform ‘C’ and Nanotech 500FG. The experimental results show that coarse-grained diamond grinding wheels are capable of ductile grinding of optical glasses with high surface and sub-surface integrity. The surface roughness values are all in nanometer scale and the sub-surface damages are around several micros in depth, which is comparative to those machined by fine-grained diamond wheels.

Abstract: In this paper, a novel conditioning technique features using copper bonded diamond grinding wheels of 91μm grain size assisted with ELID (electrolytic in-process dressing) as a conditioner to precisely and effectively condition nickel electroplated monolayer coarse-grained diamond grinding wheels of 151μm grain size was firstly developed. Under optimised conditioning parameters, the super abrasive diamond wheel was well conditioned in terms of a minimized run-out error and flattened diamond grain surfaces of constant peripheral envelope, with the conditioning force monitored by a force transducer as well as the modified wheel surface status in-situ monitored by a coaxial optical distance measurement system. Finally the grinding experiment on BK7 was conducted using the well conditioned wheel with the corresponding surface morphology and subsurface damage measured by AFM (atomic force microscope) and SEM (scanning electron microscope) respectively. The experimental result shows that the newly developed conditioning technique is applicable and feasible to ductile grinding optical glass featuring nano scale surface roughness, indicating a prospect of introducing super abrasive diamond wheels into ductile machining of brittle materials.

Abstract: A novel conditioning technique to precisely and effectively condition the nickel electroplated mono-layer coarse-grained diamond grinding wheel of 91m grain size was developed to fabricate a Diamond Micro Tool Array (DMTA) in ductile machining of brittle materials. During the fabricating process, a copper bonded diamond grinding wheels (91m grain size) dressed by ELID (electrolytic in-process dressing) was applied as a conditioner, a force transducer was used to monitor the conditioning force, and a coaxial optical distance measurement system was used to insitu monitor the modified wheel surface status. The experimental result indicates that the newly developed conditioning technique is applicable and feasible to generate required wheel topography of less than 2μm run-out error and grain geometries. The taper cutting test on BK7 proves the fabricated DMTA is capable of realizing ductile machining of brittle materials.