High Speed Flow Finishing of Inner Wall of Ceramic Ferrule Capillary

Abstract

Optical connector ferrule capillary made of zirconium oxide ceramic has been manufactured by sintering method in high temperature atmosphere, in which dimension of ferrule is unstable. In order to obtain a precise dimension of it, high speed flow finishing method developed in our laboratory has been applied to finish a inner wall of capillary. Experiments are conducted under the conditions of high flow rate of slurry suspending the aluminum oxide grains into ion-exchanged water. It is found that the surface roughness of inner wall has decreased drastically in early stage of flow pass number. SEM micrographs indicate that micosurface irregularity of as-received capillary has disappeared in a few slurry flow passes. Measuring the differential pressure between the pressure of Ar gas flowing through the capillary and the atomospheric pressure is proved to have an ability to estimate the finishing condition of inner wall surface.