On-machine measurement of microtool wear and cutting edge chipping by using a diamond edge artifact

This paper presents precision on-machine measurement of microwear and microcutting edge chipping of the diamond tool used in a force sensor integrated fast tool servo (FS-FTS) mounted on a three-axis diamond turning machine. A diamond edge artifact with a nanometric sharpness is mounted on the machine spindle with its axis of rotation along the Z-axis to serve as a reference edge artifact. The diamond tool is placed in the tool holder of the FS-FTS to generate cutting motion along the Z-axis. By moving the X-slide on which the FS-FTS is mounted, the reference edge can be scanned by the diamond tool. During the scanning, the Z-directional position of the tool is closed-loop controlled by the FS-FTS in such a way that the contact force between the tool tip and the reference edge is kept constant based on the force sensor output of the FS-FTS. The tool edge contour can be obtained from the scan trace of the tool tip, whose X- and Z-directional coordinates are provided by the output of the linear encoder of the X-slide and that of the displacement sensor in the FS-FTS, respectively. Since the reference edge artifact has a good hardness and a nanometric sharpness to ensure the lateral resolution of measurement, a microwear on the cutting edge of the diamond tool can be indentified from the measured tool edge contour. Experiments of on-machine measurement of tool edge contour and microtool wear are carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system.