Journal of Materials Processing Technology 174 (2006) 2933

Tool wear and surface nish in diamond cutting of optical glass

Ming Zhou , B.K.A. Ngoi, M.N. Yusoff, X.J. Wang
School of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore Received 24 April 2002; received in revised form 28 October 2002; accepted 4 February 2005

Abstract The development of the ability to machine glass materials to optical tolerances is highly desirable. In this work, cutting tests were carried out on glass to investigate the wear of diamond tools under different cutting conditions, i.e. conventional turning and ultrasonic vibration cutting. The tool wear mechanism was discussed on the basis of the observation of wear zone and machined surface topography. Cleavage and micro-chipping appear to be the dominant wear mechanism under the cutting conditions used in the tests. The cutting performance was found to be improved by applying ultrasonic vibration to the cutting tool. The change in the tribology of the cutting process as well as the alteration of the deformation mechanism of the work material in the cutting zone might be responsible for the reduction in tool wear in vibration cutting. 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Keywords: Diamond turning; Glass; Tool wear; Ultrasonic vibration cutting

1. Introduction Glass is brittle. Although high hardness and high brittleness make the machining of brittle materials relatively difcult due to a high tool wear rate, the demand for precision parts made from them has risen at a very fast rate primarily because of other superior physical, mechanical, optical or electronic properties [15]. Advances in manufacturing technology are therefore important to the economic production of these parts. In the past, at or spherical shapes were the prime concern in the production of glass components, so grinding and polishing were superior to turning. Conventional grinding makes a shape on a glass part by brittle or semi-brittle fractures. The scratched surface does not show transparency, therefore the ground surfaces have to be polished to make them smoother, e.g. less than 20 nm Rmax , in order to reduce the absorption and scattering on the glass surface. This is a time-consuming process. Two developments in optics that are being actively pursued are the desire to use steep aspherical glass lenses in systems and the need for optical surfaces which are free of sub-surface damage. Obviously, conventional grinding and polishing technique could not meet the

Corresponding author. Fax: +65 7911859. E-mail address: mmzhou@ntu.edu.sg (M. Zhou).

requirements for machining high precision complex surfaces at a high production rate. Therefore, if the problems of tool life and surface nish are solved, diamond turning could be an important fabrication process even for brittle materials. It would open up the possibility for producing aspherical lenses in an economic and deterministic manner, thus reducing costs and the weight of multi-element optical components. In order to reduce the wear rates of diamond tools and hence to obtain an optical surface on glass, several attempts have been made to overcome the disadvantage of low fracture toughness of workpiece materials. Some experiments on the cutting of glass by applying a locally heated machining technique have been done [6]. Although a continuous chip was produced and a transparent surface was obtained, this method was not really useful from a practical point of view because high residual stresses would be left on the machined surface. In addition, it can only be used for cutting glass of a low softening temperature. An effective way to control the wear of diamond tools is to avoid fracturing during the cutting process. Earlier investigations have indicated that glass does not always behave as a brittle material, this has been shown in indentation tests at a load of the order of grams [7,8]. Observations of a small amount of plastic deformation in glass and ceramics have been reported in wear or abrasive machining studies [9,10]. Basic researches on diamond

0924-0136/$ see front matter 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2005.02.248

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cutting of brittle materials by applying ultrasonic vibration have been carried out [1113]. Although mirror surfaces have been produced on soda-lime glass under specially controlled vibration conditions, the mechanism for ductile machining of brittle materials by applying ultrasonic vibration is not well understood. This is the principal obstacle to its practical application. In this work, diamond cutting of glass was carried out under different process conditions, i.e. conventional turning and ultrasonic vibration cutting. Emphasis was placed on reducing the tool wear rate for an acceptable surface nish.

2. Experimental procedure Cutting tests were performed on an ultra-precision 2-axis CNC diamond turning and grinding machine (Precitech Optimum 2800). This machine features T-base congured hydrostatic bearing slides and an aerostatic bearing workpiece spindle. The position feed back resolution of the machine is 8.6 nm. Optical grade glass BK7 used in the conventional cutting test (without tool vibration) was obtained from Schott optical industries. BK7 is a silicate glass with a high softening point of 615 C and a Vickers hardness of 707 kg/mm2 . A single crystal diamond cutting tool with 45 rake angle and 5 clearance angle was used. The tool nose radius is 3.175 mm. The depth of cut, feed rate and spindle speed were 0.2 m, 1 mm/min and 2000 rpm, respectively. Fig. 1 presents a schematic illustration of the ultrasonic vibration tool developed for the present research. An electrostrictive transducer is employed to generate the ultrasonic vibration in the axial direction. A booster is used to modify the amplitude of vibration applied to the cutting tool through the horn and to provide a clamping point for the more rigid

stack mounting. The horn is of stepped type with a gain of 1:1. The diamond tool tip is installed to the end of the vibrated horn in such a way that the rake face is oriented downward. Since it is expected that the acceleration of tens of thousands of gravity be applied to the tool tip, this diamond cutting tool is specially designed with the consideration of minimizing the effect of tool weight. The tool tip is vibrated in the axial direction of the horn at a resonant frequency of 40 kHz. Fused silica, which is widely used in optical systems and is an ideal glass for windows in space-vehicles and wind tunnels, is selected as the testing material for ultrasonic vibration cutting. Single crystal diamond cutting tools with rake angles of 0 and 25 were used. The cutting speed was in the range of 1.14.2 m/min and feed rate was 5 m/rev. The maximum vibration speed was 45 m/min. The micro-topography of the machined surface was examined by using a white light interferometer (Wyko 2000), an atomic force microscopy (AFM) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The microcutting force was measured by a piezoelectric dynamometer (Kistler 9254) mounted under the tool holder.

3. Results and discussion 3.1. Tool wear Tool wear is an important factor that affects the quality of the machined surface as well as the economics of machining. The wear rate of a diamond tool depends heavily on the properties of the materials being machined, especially on such properties as hardness, strength and fracture toughness. Fig. 2 shows the wear zone of the diamond tools used in the conventional cutting test after a turning distance of 100 m. Unlike the gradual smooth wear occurring in diamond cutting of soft metals such as aluminium or copper, in this study, the wear zone of the diamond tool appears to be rougher. Relatively large scale chipping in the vicinity of the cutting edge can be observed. The possible cause of such premature cracking or fracture is a defect or an imperfection in the diamond crystal such as inclusions and sub-surface damage from polishing. Due to its low fracture toughness and high brittleness, glass usually exhibits discontinuous chip formation under normal machining conditions and is susceptible to fragmentation. This will induce an impact on the cutting edge. The stress eld acting on the diamond tool contains shear and tensile stresses that could cleave a diamond crystal along its cleavage planes {1 1 1} or those crystallographic planes with intrinsic growth defects. Micro-chipping is then induced by the coalescence of cleavage micro-cracks opened by sustained uctuating stresses during the cutting process. Fig. 3 shows detailed information of the surface texture in the tool wear zone. The regular layer-pattern on the surface suggested that it might be caused by cleavage fracture along specic crystallographic planes. An effective way to control the wear of diamond tools in machining of brittle materials is to avoid fracturing during

Fig. 1. Vibration cutting tool system.

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Fig. 2. Wear of diamond tool in conventional cutting.

the cutting process. With the development of ultra-precision machine tools of high accuracy and stiffness, it becomes possible to machine glass in a plastic or ductile mode under properly controlled machining conditions. Fig. 4 shows the tool wear in ultrasonic cutting of fused silica after a total cutting distance of 90 m. The nominal depth of cut and feed rate is 0.2 m and 5 m/rev respectively. The wear zone was relatively smoother than that occurring in conventional turning. No obvious characteristics of large-scale fracture damage were observed around the cutting edge. The detailed feature of the wear zone is shown in Fig. 5. The tool wear shown in the above picture is rather small considering the hardness of fused silica. Compared with conventional turning, the tool wear rate is reduced signicantly by applying ultrasonic vibration. This may be due to the fact that the effective contact time between the workpiece and cutting edge is reduced by the high-frequency excitation of the tool. This modication in the kinematics of the cutting process has a considerable inuence on the tool wear. Shorter contact times and improved access to the machining zone for lubricant (due to intermit-

tent cutting) could reduce the level of average process forces and cutting temperatures. As a result, the crack initiation and its propagation can be restrained. Cutting force is an important factor affecting the size of the stress eld exerting at the work material beneath the tool tip and the scale of deformation. Under the same deformation conditions, a lower level of cutting forces makes plastic deformation readily occur. Cutting in ductile mode would reduce the possibility of dynamic impacts of brittle fragmentation of chips on the cutting edge. This might be one of the active mechanisms which result in the considerable reduction in tool wear. 3.2. Surface quality The specic material removal mechanism concerned can be identied by analyzing surface topography of the sample. Fig. 6 shows an AFM image of the machined surface cut without applying ultrasonic vibration. The surface is rough with micro-fracture-induced pitting damage and no regular cutting marks can be observed. These suggest that the surface

Fig. 3. Micro-structure of the tool wear zone.

Fig. 4. Tool wear in ultrasonic vibration cutting.

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Fig. 7. Ductile-regime machined surface.

Fig. 5. Details of the wear zone in ultrasonic vibration cutting.

was generated under a brittle machining mode. The surface roughness obtained from a cross-sectional view of the AFM image is Rmax 0.6 m. The surface quality of ultrasonic machining was examined with a Wyko white light interferometer. Fig. 7 shows the 3-D plot of the machined surface. The regular feed marks with an equal spacing left by the cutting edge can be seen clearly in the picture. This provides clear indications of visco-plastic deformation during the material removal operation. In other words, ductile material removal took place in the process. To investigate the characteristics of the transition zone, ultrasonic cutting of glass was conducted by continuously changing the depth of cut. Fig. 8 shows the transition area from ductile to brittle. Ductile machining takes place in the region with regular feed marks (a sign of plastic deformation). A few fractures appear when the depth of cut is around 2 m. This area is in transition between ductile and brittle machin-

ing. With a greater depth of cut in brittle regime, irregular fractures take place. Fig. 9 shows the details of the area circled in Fig. 8. It can be seen that there are stripes at the edge of the pit, which are generated by the tool vibration in the thrust force direction. Material removal in a brittle chipping pattern cannot leave such marks on the surface. Again, this result indicates that ductile regime machining of glass is possible by utilizing ultrasonic vibration technique properly. 3.3. Inuence of rake angle In the conventional cutting process, tool rake angle can signicantly affect both the cutting force and the surface nish. This is because the geometry of the tool, coupled with the cutting conditions and work-piece material properties determine the resulting force system that acts on the work-piece surface and determines whether fracture will occur in machining at room temperature. Past work on conventional diamond cut-

Fig. 6. AFM image of the machined surface in conventional cutting.

Fig. 8. Transition area from ductile to brittle.

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als with ultrasonic vibration technique. The use of tools with zero rake angles makes tool setup easier.

4. Summary of results Diamond cutting of glass was performed in order to investigate tool wear mechanisms under different cutting conditions. The micro-structure of the tool wear zone shows strong evidence that cleavage and micro-chipping could be the dominant wear mechanisms in cutting without vibration. It was conrmed experimentally that the cutting performance, in terms of the tool wear and surface nish, was improved signicantly by applying ultrasonic vibration to the cutting tool. The tendency of brittle fracturing of work materials in the cutting zone was suppressed and the tool wear rate was reduced by applying ultrasonic vibration, as compared with conventional cutting. Experimental results indicate that ultrasonic vibration diamond cutting offers the potential for producing high quality optical shapes on glass. Further investigations are needed to improve the tool life and surface nish from the viewpoint of practical applications.

Fig. 9. Detail information of the area circled in Fig. 8. Table 1 Effect of rake angle on cutting forces Rake angle (degree) 25 0 Thrust force, Fx (N) 0.54 0.67 Feed force, Fy (N) 0.02 0.01 Principal force, Fz (N) 0.25 0.16

Acknowledgement This project is supported by the National Science and Technology Board of Singapore.

Depth of cut: 2 m; feed rate: 5 m/rev; cutting speed: 1.14.2 m/min; maximum vibration speed: 45 m/min.

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