Rotary spatial vibration-assisted diamond cutting of brittle materials

• Rotary spatial vibration assisted diamond cutting is proposed for better processing brittle materials.
• The non-resonant vibration along the three translational directions is adopted to gain more flexibility.
• Consistent cutting performance can be always guaranteed even when processing large areas.
• Feasibility and superiority of this new technique is demonstrated by fabricating micro-grooves on single-crystal silicon.
• Characteristics of the machined surface and the cutting force are detailed.

In the present study, a novel process, namely rotary spatial vibration (RSV) assisted diamond cutting, is introduced to overcome cutting velocity induced cutting parameter inconsistencies as well as the cutting direction induced insufficient utilization of vibration assistance in vibration-assisted turning and milling of brittle materials. In RSV-assisted diamond cutting, a rotary motion component, generated by the rotation of the machine's spindle, is superimposed onto the three-degrees-of-freedom translational vibrations of the diamond tool. The resulting complex motions of the diamond tool assure the possibility of consistent cutting performance that is always guaranteed even when processing arbitrarily large areas. In practice, the feasibility and superiority of this technique for processing brittle materials is well demonstrated by fabricating a set of circular micro-grooves on monocrystalline silicon wafers with gradually varying depth-of-cut.