Machining Characteristics of Rock by Wire-sawing in Vacuum (8th Report)

Prototype of wire-sawing machine for high cutting-load

Abstract

The performance of wire-sawing in vacuum has been investigated for future lunar and planetary explorations. Nickel fixing abrasives adhered on a rock specimen in vacuum and the rock was hardly cut. This report describes a prototype of wire-sawing machine to apply a high cutting-load. In the previous machine, the tension of a saw-wire could not be increased because of a low stiffness of a leveling arm. In a prototype, two bobbins were embedded in a frame and shifted together with the frame to wind the saw-wire uniformly. The tension was controlled by adjusting a pulse rate of stepping motors to rotate the bobbins. The cutting performance was investigated both in air and vacuum. The cutting amount was linearly increased under a high cutting-load even in vacuum.