Abstract
The recent rapid advances in technology have resulted in an increased demand for the high-precision processing of the industrial materials such as silicon wafer. Against this backdrop, the wheel stone is one of the important tools for industrial technology and manufacturing industry. However, as for the finishing wheel stone, called “Awasedo”, it is assumed that the natural wheel stone may still more excellent than the artificial wheel stone. “Awasedo” is the most appreciated and most commonly used by craftsman whetting the edge of a Japanese sword.
In this paper, the objective is to innovate the excellent performance of “Awasedo” to the artificial wheel stone. With this objective in mind, we characterized the microstructure of “Awasedo” from the viewpoint of the engineering geology. As the results, we find out that the micropore of the high quality “Awasedo” is mainly composed of sub-micron pores.
