Co-Cr alloy used as a biomaterial is required to possess an excellent resistance to corrosion, wear, and biocompatibility. In addition, it needs to have a mirror-like surface finish for improvement of chemical stability. In the present work, we performed Electrolytic In-Process Dressing grinding on Co-Cr alloy, and also evaluated the processing characteristics and the resulting surface properties. Final finishing using a #8000 wheel produced an extremely smooth ground surface. In addition, as compared with the conventionally polished samples, the ground samples demonstrated superior surface hardness. These advantages can be attributed to the diffusion of several kinds of elements during the grinding process and the effect of grinding fluid compositions.

This paper describes micro incremental forming of thin films. A desk-top type of CNC milling machine with motion resolutions less than 0.1 micrometers was used to form three kinds of thin films in this study. A tool for forming is a bar with a round tip. It was found that the rotation of a tool up to 10000 rpm promotes the local plastic deformation near the tool-film contact area and improves the forming limit of thin films. It was also found that the optimum axial feed is around the thickness of the workpiece. Finally, incremental forming of a thin aluminum film 0.8 micrometers thick was conducted successfully under optimized conditions.

Ultraprecision diamond-machined silicon wafers have been irradiated by a nanosecond pulsed Nd:YAG laser. The results indicate that at specific laser energy intensity levels, the machining-induced subsurface damage layer of silicon has been reconstructed to a perfect single crystalline structure identical to the bulk. Laser irradiation causes two effects to silicon: one is the rapid melting and epitaxial regrowth of the near-surface amorphous layer; the other is the activation and complete removal of the dislocations from the crystalline layer. It is the dislocation-free crystalline bulk region that serves as the seed layer to recrystallize the amorphous layer, enabling excellent crystalline perfection. These findings may offer practical alternatives to current chemo-mechanical processing methods for silicon wafers.

A new cutting device driven by an enlargement mechanism with a PZT drive has been developed to realize position the cutting tool from nm to mm order. In this study, basic mechanical principal of a new developed enlargement mechanism consists of fluid chamber, a PZT device, and cutting tool stage is reported. This developed device can enlarge 4 times of stroke than the original one of the PZT. The dynamic characteristics show DC to 100 Hz which is enough high to realize the non-circle cutting. The non-circle components are machined by the developed device. The profile accuracy obtained settles in ±3μm by the repetitive control method.

Linear slide guides are useful for difficult-to-cut metals’ cutting. To realize a high-performance linear slide guide with lower friction coefficient and higher damping performance, the effects of micro-grooves and cavities formed on the contact surfaces were examined on the frictional characteristics. The experiments were done using some slide guide models at sliding velocities not more than 50 m/min. The model consisting of a slider with cavities and a hardened slide guide with a mirror-like sliding surface demonstrated the friction coefficient being about 0.02 at sliding velocities from 1 to 6 m/min under the slideway lubricant of VG32.

In this paper, the novel clamping mechanism for double-face contact tooling-systems with a solid toolshank is proposed for applying to high-speed spindles. Furthermore, the clamping characteristics of the proposed mechanism are evaluated with experiments and finite element analyses. From the results, the followings are clarified; To load drawing force at the center of the clamping wedge makes clamping action reliable. Since this also provides the balance against to centrifugal force, the magnified clamping force can be obtained up to rotational speed of 60,000min-1. In addition, the proposed clamping mechanism is applicable to double-face contact toolshanks.

Adapting desktop machine tools in producing small parts can achieve high level energy efficiency. For this reason, many miniature machines have been developed. However, most of them have no function of changing tools automatically, which makes miniature machine tools hardly to fit for practical use. In this study, a miniature automatic tool changer (ATC), within the volume around 100×100×100mm³, has been successfully developed. The tool change motion follows a turret type of ATC with 6 individual tool holders. Moreover, through applying ATC into a machining process, its cutting performance was investigated.

In this report, the dynamic characteristics are identified by real-time calculation as the second regression function. The proposed control method is realized the real-time compensation of positioning. The compensated output is suppressed to 50% of trajectory error of the conventional PID control without identifying the parameters previously. Moreover by giving only the friction to the servomotor, the friction force is measured. The friction correction is applied to a real-time inverse transfer function method considering the dynamic behavior . The result by our method shows the considerable reduction of stick motion.

In order to achieve sub-micron-order geometrical accuracy efficiently, motion errors of machine tools should be reduced. This paper reports on a compensation result of motion errors in Z direction on XY plane. The repeatable error components due to the ball screw drive systems were modelled by using Fourier series. Z-axis was commanded to cancel the estimated motion errors and the variation of the relative displacement of the tool to the table was reduced from 1.3 μmP-V to 0.5 μmP-V. Machining experiments were also carried out and the straightness of the profile curve was reduced from 1.0 μm to 0.4 μm.

The purpose of this study is a real-time compensation of the machining error caused by deflection of a small diameter end-mill at a cutting point. Then, the growth mechanism of machining errors in end-milling was investigated by comparing measured deflection of tool and cutting forces with machining errors. As a result, it was found in the experiments that relation between deflection of tool at cutting point and normal force under cutting process could be estimated from static stiffness. In addition, it was concluded that machining errors in up milling could be estimated from minimum value of distance from cutting edge to ideal machined surface.

A Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based hybrid optimization technique is developed to determine optimum cutting parameters, sequence, number and type of passes for turning operation. Besides common constraints like cutting force, power, surface roughness etc., rotational speed of machine tool, feed rate-depth of cut ratio are also considered as constraints to avoid failure in actual machining conditions. Feasibility of optimum solution is also ensured in this work. ANN provides actual machining information regarding surface roughness during the optimization process. Improved binary mapping and penalty approach makes GA flexible and efficient for different machines and workpiece conditions.

In a machining system using computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools, detailed models of machining information are necessary to simulate detailed machining and to control the complex motion of machine tools. However, existing machining information models lack the necessary information and are described in their own formats. Consequently, many models which include the same information exist, and both a virtual machining system and adaptive control for a real machining system are insufficient. To solve these problems, a digital machining information (DMI) model to support a real-virtual machining system is proposed in this study.

The purpose of this study is to add a function that evaluates the operations with the forearm torsion, such as screw driving and knob turning, to digital human models. The rotational ranges of an object gripped with a hand and the working postures of the upper limb were measured at various positions of the object. As a result, it was demonstrated that the rotational ranges of the object varied depending on the working posture. The degree of coincidence was defined among direction vectors for each segment in the link model consisting of the upper limb and the rotated object, and a method was proposed to estimate the rotational ranges of the object from the degree of coincidence. Finally software has been developed in order to evaluate the operations with the forearm torsion based on the method.

It is known that brittle materials can be machined like ductile materials when uncut chip thickness is less than critical one. Face turning by using a tool having round edge with small chamfer was carried out to find out effective parameter for distinction between ductile and brittle mode cuttings using by AE signal, cutting forces and vibration acceleration. As a result, the following results were reached. (1) RMS value of AE signal was larger in brittle mode cutting than in ductile mode cutting. (2) Static thrust force per unit area of cutting cross section was larger than in brittle mode cutting.

A laser microfabrication system capable of fabricating three-dimensional microstructures using an ultraprecise machining center MC and a conventional CAM system was developed. Three-dimensional microstructures were fabricated by deepening a two-dimensional pocket obtained by scanning a laser beam in the x-y plane in the negative z-direction. A glasslike carbon having a laser beam absorption factor of over 80 % was used as a workpiece. It was verified by a machining test that free-formed surfaces could be fabricated by deepening two-dimensional pockets that could be made using both linear and circular motions of the MC in the negative z-direction.

Effect of wavelength on machining characteristics of AlN and SiC in micro-drilling using Q-swithched YAG harmonic was experimentally investigated. The drilled depth increased with the decrease of wavelength. Besides, under the reduced pressure condition, the drilled depth increased and the better surface integrity could be obtained compared to the atmospheric condition. The circumference region around drilled hole was oxidized, and the oxidization in the case of fourth harmonic was more remarkable than that in second harmonic. In the initial stage of drilling for AlN, the thermal expansion was observed at the irradiated point in the case of fundamental wavelength, while higher harmonic made it possible to drill without thermal expansion.

This paper deals with the effects of the nozzle shape on cutting results and fundamental characteristics of laser cutting of solid type molded composite materials, which was composed of semiconductor board and epoxy resin moldings compounds, by Q-switched single-mode fiber laser. Experimental results clarified that high speed cutting of 16mm/s could be carried out with a Laval throat nozzle with initial expansion zone. Besides, Laval throat nozzle made it possible to reduce the kerf width, and the difference of kerf width between irradiation-side and exit-side became smaller. Q-switched single-mode fiber laser proved to be useful for cutting of composite materials.

Formerly, the removal threshold with laser ablation was determined based on the relationship between the averaged laser intensity and the removed width. However, since this value changes according to the irradiation conditions, the application of this value was limited within the narrow range of irradiation conditions. In this paper, the novel method to determine the ablation threshold is proposed in order to make the threshold possible to apply independent of the optical system and laser irradiation conditions. To achieve this purpose, the simplified ablation model with the consideration of the laser intensity distribution is introduced, and then, the validity of the model is clarified experimentally. Furthermore, the estimation method of the ablation characteristics is proposed based on the model.

In this study, “stealth dicing” (SD) was applied to ultra thin wafers 50 μm in thickness. A coupling problem composed of focused laser propagation in single crystal silicon, along with laser absorption, temperature rise and heat conduction was analyzed by considering the temperature dependence of the absorption coefficient. When the depth of the focal plane is too shallow, the laser is also absorbed at the surface as the thermal shock wave reaches the surface. As a result, not only is an internal modified layer generated but ablation occurs at the surface as well. When the laser is focused at the surface, strong ablation occurs. Ablation at the surface is unfavorable because of the debris pollution and thermal effect on the device domain. It was concluded that there is a suitable depth for the focal plane so that the thermal shock wave propagates inside the wafer only. The optimum irradiating conditions such as pulse energy, pulse width, spot radius, and depth of focal plane can be estimated theoretically also for ultra thin wafer.

Silicon carbide is expected to be used as a next-generation material because of its more effective mechanical and electronic properties. The hetero Molecular Beam Epitaxy process may provide a method to form thin layered mono-crystal Silicon carbide on a Silicon substrate. The present paper aims to clarify the relation between the layer’s properties and the substrate crystal orientations, especially (100) and (110), and discusses the mechanism of Silicon carbide growth under certain operating conditions through a series of tests and evaluations.

The crack depth of laser scribing is limited because the inner compressive stress region under the cooling area prevents median crack growth. In this study, the glass was masked partially on the scribing line so as not to generate an inner compressive stress region and we found that the median crack depth of laser scribing was deeper in the experiment. Thermal stress analysis of this phenomenon was conducted by using a three dimensional FEM. As a result, the stress distribution and the phenomenon in which the median crack grew deeper corresponded qualitatively well.

The aim of this study is to explore the possibility of applying ultra-short pulsed Laser into cleavage-cutting of silicon wafer. Unlike the conventional Laser machining which transforms the power into heat energy to remove the materials, ultra-short pulsed Laser removes materials by a behavior called "ablation" if the incoming Laser power is big enough. "Ablation" is able to directly break off the chemical bonding of the materials by multi-photon absorption without introducing heat effect. In this study, tension tests and three-point bending tests are performed after irradiation with different conditions to acquire the fundamental data for Laser cleavage-cutting.

In this paper, a novel method of laser cleaving for the brittle substrate cutting is proposed, in which the crack is propagated by temperature gradient in thickness direction caused by laser with the wavelength transparent for substrate materials. The laser energy is absorbed at the back surface and generates the temperature gradient and the local bending moment that effectively propagates the crack from the initial defect on the incident surface. Irradiating conditions for glass substrates to achieve precise cutting are investigated by simple cleaving experiments. Then, it is confirmed that high quality cutting can be easily obtained by the proposed method.

A measuring system is developed based on the autocollimation principle for evaluating the accuracy of a deep hole. The accuracy of a hole is measured by scanning its wall in a circumferential direction at depth intervals of 10mm using a laser-guided probe. In this study, the accuracy and repeatability of this measuring system are evaluated by measuring the roundness, cylindricity and straightness of holes. As a result, it is clarified that the accuracy of the roundness, straightness, cylindricity measured by the measuring system corresponds well to that of the tester in terms of both shape and value and that the standard deviation of 10 measuring measurements of roundness is 0.19μm.

A probe is designed and fabricated that can measure the diameter, roundness, cylindricity and straightness of deep holes with 100 to 600 mm diameter. To improve detection accuracy, CCD cameras are used to detect the probe position and inclination instead of the position-sensitive detectors used in earlier probes. Measurements are made by precisely feeding a workpiece over the probe using a servomotor. The measurements show that the probe can measure the diameter, roundness, cylindricity and straightness of a deep hole with one scan, with good correlation with measurement made by alternative reliable measuring devices.

A high accuracy measurement system for round parts based on sub-pixel and calibration technology is established. Canny edge detection algorithm is used to find the edge of the part and least squares approximation is used to calculate the parameters of the circle. Experiment results proved that the measuring scheme can realize real time detection with high accuracy and has broad prospects for the application of dimension measurement.

The purpose of research work is to develop a clinometer to measure the angular positioning deviations of a tilting axis with high accuracy. Five-axis machining centers consist of three translational axes and two rotary axes. The positioning accuracy of their three linear axes is checked by a laser interferometer. However, there is no measuring instrument to be able to measure the positioning accuracy of the tilting table whose center line is lower than the top surface of the table, automatically. Thus, a clinometer is developed for measuring the tilting axis of the five-axis machines table. The developed servo-clinometer consists of a rotary encoder and a pendulum with a precision level. When the clinometer mounted on the tilting rotary table moves around the tilting axis, the pendulum moves according to gravity and then its direction of the pendulum is adjusted by the servo-mechanism. Through the experiment, it was confirmed that the developed clinometer is enough to apply to the measurement of the tilting deviations.

This study aims to discuss the design of surface micro-structure for quick-drying. The prepared structures were the array of micro-pillars with different sizes and pitches fabricated by photolithography. It was found that the wider pitch of micro-pillars makes the sliding angle smaller, which means that droplets are easily removed. However, the evaporation time became longer. Thus, reticular pattern, which consists of micro-pillars and flat area, was designed and tested to obtain both of the merits. The evaporation time became shorter than the fully arrayed surface on this pattern, though the sliding angle was not improved.

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has a graphite-like lamellar structure and has been used as oil additive for the study of self-lubricated porous sliding bearings. The present paper is based on a series of experimental studies with h-BN as an additive and discusses results in the form of performance characteristics like the coefficient of friction, bearing temperature, pressure distribution, load carrying capacity etc. The tribological properties were compared with the conventional sliding bearings. The results of the experimental studies showed that h-BN as an additive in transformer and hydrorafined-5 oil possesses good friction reducing, high load-carrying capacity and excellent anti-wear properties.

A novel supercritical cleaning process was proposed for removing contamination in high aspect ratio trenches and microholes of highly integrated semiconductor devices. The supercritical CO₂-pulse cleaning with the periodic pressure swing of supercritical fluid between subcritical and supercritical conditions was conducted for removing particles in microholes. The effects of microhole size on particle removal were investigated by means of non-destructive observation of high aspect ratio model structures with an optical microscope and SEM.

We propose the mind modeling which is the complicated expression of combinations from the three elements: Unit, Load, Stimulation. The mind changes like the human mind behavior. The Unit has two states that are Regular and Active which can be changed. The change of Mind is expressed by the change of the Unit. Even if the same situation happens, it takes different actions when the mind is changed. By using the mind model for the autonomous decentralized FMS, it is ascertained that it can reduce the collisions between each AGV.

Process planning and scheduling are important manufacturing planning activities which deal with resource utilization and time span of the manufacturing operations. The process plans and the schedules generated in the planning phase shall be modified in the execution phase due to the disturbances in the manufacturing systems. This paper deals with a multi-agent architecture of an integrated and dynamic system for process planning and scheduling for multi jobs. Systematic methods are proposed to generate the process plans and the schedules of the manufacturing resources and the individual jobs, dynamically and incrementally. A simulation software has been prepared to carry out case studies, aimed at verifying the performance of the proposed multi-agent architecture.

Real-time scheduling processes based on the utility values have been proposed and applied to the Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS), in the previous papers. A simulation based procedure has also been implemented to estimate the future status of HMS and to determine the utility values aiming at improving scheduling method. However, it was assumed that only one holon in the HMS carries out the estimation for the ease of the estimation process. A simulation based real-time scheduling method is newly proposed, in the paper, to improve the estimation process which enable all the holons to estimate the future status of the HMS.

HMS have emerged as an approach towards FMS to respond to the erratic market trends and consumer demands. To implement HMS, in control systems, is the Holonic Component Based Architecture (HCBA). It is a combined form of Component Based Development (CBD) and HMS. CBD is basically a programming approach in which a problem is solved by a solution that consists of many modules instead of a monolithic module. It very close to OOP, but is an improvement over it. This paper explains the approach of HMS and the concept of Holonic Component Based Architecture. Some variations have also been proposed in the existing structure of HCBA. Merits and de-merits of HMS in the present scenario have been discussed.

Recently, materials made of natural resources have been gaining attention. In particular, there are high expectations for bamboo fiber. However, there have been a lot of problems with the bamboo fiber extraction technique in the past. These problems include quality, accuracy, and efficiency. To solve these problems, we propose a cutting extraction technique that uses a machining center. To evaluate the proposed method, an experiment was conducted. Some problems with the extraction technique were solved.

Shortening the product development time and reducing the cost have become very important issues in these days. The SLS technology contributes to these demands. In addition, the efficiency of material use is high, as SLS consumes only necessary amount of material. However, if it is not maintained properly, the material deterioration advances, finally, the recycled material causes a defective molding. In this case, we have to perform re-molding. This causes the delay of the development schedule. The prediction method of deterioration in the material for SLS should be discussed and studied. In this paper, fundamental experiment on the material degradation is conducted. The theoretical analysis of the degree of deterioration of material and the prediction method is discussed.

The suitability of stereo lithography for the rapid manufacturing of micro components is presented. Since Rapid Manufacturing requires a higher-order diversity of materials than available for current Rapid Prototyping machines, our research aims towards the fabrication of new rapid manufacturing materials. Ormocer^®s offer various material properties that can be adjusted by the internal nano-structure of the organic-inorganic parts. In order to attract micro system technology product designers, the process precision has been investigated by means of micro computer tomography (μCT) and the generated parts have further been mechanically characterized. The resulting process accuracy is in the order of a few tens of μm, the mechanical strength of the Ormocer^® is above several hundreds of MPa. The combination of micro stereo lithography and Ormocer^® offers new possibilities for the Rapid Manufacturing of micro components with adjustable properties for end-user applications.

The development of high performance grinding machines together with the latest superabrasive technology has the potential to impact significantly on existing process chains. Abrasive machining is one material removal process that has the potential to span several orders of magnitude in terms of stock removal. This ranges from high efficiency deep grinding (HEDG) which can now compete with conventional cutting processes and provides the potential for improved surface integrity, surface finish and form accuracy, through to superfinished surfaces with roughness values as low as 10nm Ra. Thus, using a single machine tool and a single set-up, exceptionally high stock removal rates are achievable in a roughing cycle followed by superfinishing to generate the required surface characteristics and profile, providing higher precision and reduced manufacturing costs.