Papers by Keyword: Coarse-Grained Diamond Wheel

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: 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.