This paper discuss the wear behavior of cBN grain cutting edges in deep grinding. To make the topographic features ofthe wheel working surface in deep grinding clear, changes in the shapes of the grain cutting edges are observed by ascanning electron micro scope. The wear characteristics are evaluated quantitatively using attritious wear flat percentage.The wear behavior of grain cutting edges are divided into two main types. A type of the wear behavior of the grain cuttingedges generated micro fractures and the changes in attritious wear flat percentage was stable. Another type caused manywear flat areas and attritious wear flat percentage increased sharply during grinding process. The result are closely relatedto the changes in grinding forces and the workpiece surface roughness.

The evaporation of droplets from Si wafers coated with low-dielectric-constant (Low-k), Cu, and thermally oxidized (Th-Ox) films was investigated to fundamentally study precision wafer cleaning. Ultrapure water was dropped onto the wafer, and the resulting droplet shapes and watermarks were observed using microscope cameras. These images were then used to measure the droplet's shape, namely its height and contact area, from which the contact angle and droplet volume were calculated. The watermark size was also measured after the evaporation was completed. Results showed that the droplet evaporation processes can occur in two modes, namely constant contact angle (CCA) and constant contact radius (CCR) modes. The watermark size was strongly affected by the evaporation process: for CCR-type evaporation, the watermark was almost the same size as the initial droplet contact area, whereas the watermarks produced via CCA-type processes were smaller. For the Low-k and Th-Ox films, the evaporation processes changed from CCR to CCA, whereas the droplet on the Cu film showed only CCR-type evaporation. The droplet evaporation process and watermark size were measured for a patterned wafer with on a Cu pattern on a Low-k film. Results showed only CCR-type evaporation, similar to that observed in the Cu film.

The flexibility in respect of design and manufacturing freedom that additive manufacturing (AM) offer are key driving factors for many industrial sectors. For example, designing and manufacturing unique internal conformal cooling/heating channels with enhanced functionalities for various applications like tools and heat exchangers. However, for the majority of the metal AM-processes in the as-build condition, AM is associated with high surface roughness, which has a measurable impact e.g on the heat transfer and flow properties. Hence, proper characterization of the fluid flow and heat transfer is vital to understand how the AM surfaces should be optimized for maximum output. The current study considers the effect of surface roughness and channels dimensions on the pressure drop and heat transfer. An experimental investigation was made of cooling channels produced by Powder-Bed-Fusion using Laser-Beam-Melting (PBF-LBM) additive manufacturing technique. Cooling channels with as-build surfaces was compared to post-processed cooling channels such as extrude honing and drilled channels, respectively. Results showed the lowest pressure drop for extrude honed channels compare to drilled and as-build channels, while heat transfer showed the same trend for as-build and extrude honed channels. The complexity of surface topography of as-build channels need to be described by parameters suitable for the detection of fluid interaction. Combination of different parameters remains to be investigated

With the background of spreading the small and high performance mobile computers and developing the electric vehicles, the establishment of various high performance devices is demanded. Since chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has played an important role for these development, there are several unclear points in the CMP mechanism. For example, the removal rate of CMP increases when the polishing pad which has large number of actual contact points between polishing pad and substrate was used. On the other hand, the excessive number of contact points adversely affects the removal rate, however, this mechanism has not been elucidated. Currently, development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies remarkably makes progress, so that the introducing method of AI to the CMP apparatus is expected. In this paper, we propose the polishing system by neural networks as well as try to predict and operation among the desired removal rate, the pad surface asperities and conditioning parameters. As a result, we succeed in presenting the example of proposed system to the CMP apparatus. By using the proposed system, we can predict relationship between the removal rate and the polishing pad surface asperities precisely. Furthermore, the proposed system can achieve the desired removal rate within a few percent error by controlling the conditioning parameters.

This paper discusses the surface modification processing of copper nickel alloy for lead frame using Na₂SO₄ electrolyzed oxidizing water (hereinafter to as EO water). First, the etching characteristics of Na₂SO₄ EO water against the test pieces surface of copper nickel alloy was clarified using chemicals and NaCl EO water for comparative immersion experiments. The results showed that as for the etching efficiency, Na₂SO₄ EO water was superior compared with H₂SO₄ solution, but inferior to NaCl EO water. Next, by the observation using SEM image, the influence of Na₂SO₄ EO water on the surface micro shape was clarified. The results indicated that when using Na₂SO₄ EO water etching residue becomes little compared with H₂SO₄ solution, and the dimple becomes small compared with NaCl EO water. Lastly, the cleanliness in the outermost surface was clarified by auger spectrum analysis. The results indicated Na₂SO₄ EO water is same as H₂SO₄ solution and there was few chlorine contaminations compared with NaCl EO water.

The present paper is intended to show effect of surface roughness on surface force measurement and to demonstrate a newly-proposed indirect surface force measurement using two probes. In the case of hydrogen-terminated and octadecyl-trichloro-silane-coated Si surfaces with micro-mounds, measured surface forces is strongly affected by micro-roughness. The surface force, which varies from 2 μN to 180 μN, is proportional to the logarithm of the curvature radius of the micro-mound. Meanwhile, in the proposed indirect measurement method of surface force, surface force of arbitrary two surface is calculated on the basis of modified JKR and Fowkes theories with surface forces measured by two kinds of probes. The authors prepared a specialized OTS-coated probe as well as a standard glass probe to verify validity of the indirect surface force measurement. For a case of surface force between Si and APTES surfaces, the indirectly measured value reasonably corresponds to the directly measured value. It is confirmed that the proposed method is effective for surface force evaluation for arbitrary two surfaces without probe coating.

The purpose of this research is to collect basic data in high speed machining aiming at further higher efficiency of die processing by high speed milling. The machining center with both the maximum rotation speed of about 160,000 min^-1 and the maximum feed speed of 15,000 mm/min was used as the ultra-high speed milling. Moreover, the radius end mill which is advantageous in terms of cutting efficiency as compared to the ball end mill was used as a tool. In the previous report, machining characteristics in face cutting and side cutting were investigated. As a result of cutting at a cutting speed of 500 m/min, the flank wear of the end cutting edge in side cutting was larger than that of the face cutting, and it was found that face cutting was more effective. In this report, in order to improve efficiency of high speed milling, effects of pick feeds of up cutting and down cutting on tool wear and machining characteristics were investigated after cutting pre-hardened steel NAK 55 by TiAlN-coated carbide radius end mill. Flank wear of the tools after up cutting was less than down cutting when the pick feed was smaller than 0.1 mm, which tendency changed when the pick feed was larger than 0.3 mm. The flank wear of tools after the irregular pick feed reciprocating cutting when the pick feed were 0.1 mm in up cutting and 0.3 mm in down cutting respectively was less than that of tools after the regular reciprocating cutting.

Accurate and robust 3D measurement is widely required by industrial robot usage; however, 3D measurement under complex lighting conditions such that scenes include metallic objects or semi-transparent objects is still a difficult problem. We tackled this problem by using the Light Transport Matrix (LTM) sparse estimation. LTM is one of the representations of reflection on a projector-camera system, and by using LTM and epipolar geometry, the direct components of the reflection can be extracted. We proposed an extension of LTM estimation which enables sparse estimation to success under saturated condition. Our method utilizes Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) for both of the ℓ₁ norm function and the saturation function. The key idea is to separate saturated part of the observation model from the original ℓ₁ minimization formulation. We also demonstrate that our measurement method performs well for robot visions by integrating to an actual robot task.

A photonic nanojet (PNJ) is a fine high-intensity light beam that is generated at the backside of a dielectric microsphere irradiated a laser light. A PNJ has a smaller beam diameter than the incident wavelength. Moreover, a PNJ can propagate a longer distance than 1 μm while maintaining a high intensity with minimal divergence. We propose a laser micro machining method using a PNJ. In this paper, hole machining experiments and finite-difference time-domain simulations were conducted to investigate the fundamental characteristics of laser micro machining using a PNJ by controlling PNJ position in the propagation direction. Hole machining experiments showed that a PNJ is suitable for micro/nano machining. The simulations also showed that nanometer scale machining is possible even though the position of PNJ changes by 1 μm in the propagation direction due to the minimal divergence beam.

For non-deconstructive generator inspection, robots which can crawl in a gap of a rotor and a stator have been developed.Since the robot should be enough thin to crawl in the gap, the inspection devices also need to be compact. Percussion is amethod to detect the stator wedge looseness. Since echo vibration excited by striking the target is analyzed in this method,the device requires two functions: a striking function and a sensing function. Basically, two devices such as a hammer anda microphone are utilized to achieve the functions. In this paper, a percussion device with the force control technique andthe inspection method to detect the stator wedge looseness are proposed. Since the proposed device can not only controlthe striking force but also sense the reaction force by itself, it is expected that the device can be compact. Moreover, in theproposed method, inner stator slot model parameters are estimated by analyzing the gain characteristics of the proposeddevice. Then, the amount of the stator wedge looseness is evaluated based on the model parameters. The validity of theproposed percussion device and the inspection method are evaluated through the experiments.