Advances in micro ultrasonic assisted lapping of microstructures in hard–brittle materials: a brief review and outlook

Predictive modeling of material removal modes in micro ultrasonic machining

“…Since the material removal in USM occurs through mechanical action of particles within the abrasive slurry, no thermal and electrical phenomenon takes place during the process. Therefore, micro-USM is one of the liable candidates to create micro features in hard and brittle materials such as silicon, glass, quartz, and advanced ceramics with minimum thermal damage and in a cost-effective way [1,2].…”

“…However, process measures such as surface integrity and material removal rate have been points of concern in micro-USM due to increasing demand on quality and productivity of the emerging micro products [2,3]. On the other hand, material removal mode whether it occurs in brittle or ductile mode and transition between these modes are significant terms with direct impact on both surface integrity and material removal rate associated with process quality and productivity respectively.…”

Development of an extremely thin grinding-tool for grinding microgrooves in optical glass

“…USM produces very little heat and the vibrating machine tool is never in direct contact with the workpiece surface, instead abrasive slurry is used. However, Zhang et al (2004) warned that fractures in the workpiece can be caused by the vibrating tool and tool wear can be high due to the hardness of the abrasive slurry. Therefore, the disadvantages of USM include severe tool wear and mechanical cracks on both the surface and the inside of structures.…”

Ultrasonic abrasive μ-machining with thermoplastic tooling

“…In such instances, the workpiece material is not necessarily removed but can simply be displaced as it was observed for some fine polishing operations [8,9]. As a result, refinements of ultrasonic machining were proposed to conduct polishing operations [5,7,[10][11][12]. Some ultrasonic polishing processes were limited to flat 2D surfaces, while others proposed ultrasonic polishing of 3D freeform surfaces using small tool tip 1-3-mm in diameter [5,11] or even smaller with 5-300-mm tool diameter [10].…”

“…As a result, refinements of ultrasonic machining were proposed to conduct polishing operations [5,7,[10][11][12]. Some ultrasonic polishing processes were limited to flat 2D surfaces, while others proposed ultrasonic polishing of 3D freeform surfaces using small tool tip 1-3-mm in diameter [5,11] or even smaller with 5-300-mm tool diameter [10]. However, even though such processes are meant to promote polishing operations up to an automated level, they are considered as serial processes, which require complex, timeconsuming tool path programming with challenging tool wear compensation schemes [13].…”