Elliptical Vibration Cutting of Hardened Steel with Large Nose Radius Single Crystal Diamond Tool

抄録

It has been verified that ultra-precision diamond machining of hardened steel can be realized by applying the elliptical vibration cutting process. This innovative machining technology enables direct machining of steel dies and molds with a single crystal diamond tool and makes the indispensable nickel-plating step in the conventional diamond machining process unnecessary. This not only increases mold tool life, but also reduces the machining cost and cycle time. Therefore, elliptical vibration cutting has been considered as a very promising manufacturing technology for high precision die and mold machining. However, progress in elliptical vibration cutting has been hampered by bottlenecks in machining of large-size steel workpieces owing to the low machining efficiency. This study proposed an efficient machining method, elliptical vibration cutting with a large nose radius single crystal diamond tool. Experimental findings revealed that the proposed machining method had great potential to realize efficient ultra-precision diamond machining of hardened steel. However, it was found that the ploughing phenomenon affected the finished surface quality significantly. To minimize the ploughing effect an analytical model was developed. This model enabled minimization of the ploughing effect by optimizing the machining conditions. Finally, the analytical model was qualitatively validated with a series of plane cutting experiments and the experimental results demonstrated good agreement with the analytical model.