Investigation of the Micro-Grinding Process

Burak Ozdoganlar, Mechanical Engineering

There is an ever-increasing demand for miniature parts from many industries. Mechanical micromachining processes, such as micro-milling and drilling, are becoming popular means of creating such parts from metals, polymers, and ceramics. However, the quality requirements, including shape precision, and more importantly, the surface finish, cannot be effectively fulfilled.

In the macro scale, part making processes are recursively applied: a part is shaped through milling or turning process, and is then finished using one of the finishing processes, such as grinding. Grinding process yields components with accurate dimensions and good smoothness/reflectivity.

The purpose of this project is to develop a micro-grinding process that will bring the benefits of finishing process to the micro/nano scale. Project includes specimen preparation and experimental investigation of micro-grinding various materials using grinding tools as small as 100 µm in diameter, and measuring surface finishes using white-light interferometry, atomic force microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy.  The experiments will be conducted in Prof. Ozdoganlar’s Multiscale Manufacturing and Dynamics Laboratory. It is expected that these processes can create surface roughness in the order of few nanometers Ra.

If successful, this process will bring exciting opportunities for miniature optics components and small-scale mechanical devices (such as medical and biomedical devices and miniature robots.)