ME 010 803 PRODUCTION ENGINEERING Module III

MICROMACHINING
MRF, MRAFF Processes, Diamond turning, MRP Fluid

What is Micro Fabrication?

Fabrication of products deals with making of machines, structures or process equipment by casting, forming, welding, machining & assembling. Classified into: Macro & micro Macro: fabrication of structures/parts/products that are measurable /observable by naked eye( 1mm in size) Micro: fabrication of miniature structures/parts/products that are not visible with naked eye(1 m dimension 1000 m in size) Methods of Micro Fabrication: Material deposition & Material Removal

Classification of Micro fabrication

Figure: Classification of Micro Machining

Micro Machining
Machining of micro parts is not literally correct.

Removal of material in the form of chips or debris having the size in the range of microns.
Creating micro features or surface characteristics (especially surface finish) in the micro/nano level. Definition: material removal at micro/nano level with no constraint on the size of the component being machined.

Micro Machining

Figure: Micro Machining Definition

Why Micro Machining?

Final finishing operations in manufacturing of precise parts are always of concern owing to their most critical, labour intensive and least controllable nature. In the era of nanotechnology, deterministic high precision finishing methods are of utmost importance and are the need of present manufacturing scenario. The need for high precision in manufacturing was felt by manufacturers worldwide to improve interchangeability of components, improve quality control and longer wear/fatigue life.

Why Micro Machining?

Present day High-tech Industries, Design requirements are stringent. Extraordinary Properties of Materials (High Strength, High heat Resistant, High hardness, Corrosion resistant etc) Complex 3D Components (Turbine Blades) Miniature Features (filters for food processing and textile industries having few tens of microns as hole diameter and thousands in number) Nano level surface finish on Complex geometries (thousands of turbulated cooling holes in a turbine blade) Making and finishing of micro fluidic channels (in electrically conducting & non conducting materials, say glass, quartz, &ceramics)

Micro Machining
Main purposes:
Shaping and sizing a part (AMMPs) Surface finishing a part (ANFPs) Main classification: Processes which use Advanced Micro Machining Processes, (AMMPs)

Mechanical AMMPs: Mechanical force (abrasion: abrasive particles as tools, removing material in the form of micro/nano chips) Thermal AMMPs: Direct energy of beam or plasma (ablation: removal by melting /vaporization)
Electro Chemical AMMPs: Electro Chemical or Chemical Reaction (removal by chemical reaction)

Micro Machining
Advanced Nano Finishing Processes (ANFPs) ANFPs with no external control of forces Abrasive Flow Finishing AFF, Chemo Mechanical Polishing CMP & Elastic Emission Machining EMM) ANFPs with external control of forces Magnetic Abrasive Finishing MAF,

Magneto Rheological Finishing MRF,

Magneto Rheological Abrasive Flow Finishing MRAFF & Magnetic Float Polishing MFP)

Machining Accuracy
The machining processes are classified into three categories on the basis of achievable accuracy viz. Conventional machining, precision machining and ultra precision machining. Machining accuracies in conventional processes is about 1 m, while in precision and ultra precision machining, it is 0.01m (10 nm) and 0.001m (1 nm) respectively. As the demand moves from the microtechnology (1m accuracy capability) to the nanotechnology region (1 nm accuracy) the systems engineering demands rapid increase in stringency and complexity.

Achievable Machining Accuracy

TRADITIONAL FINISHING PROCESSES Grinding

In grinding the material is removed from the work piece surface by relative motion of the cylindrical wheel having abrasive particles embedded on its periphery. Lapping Lapping uses loose abrasives to finish the surface. Finishing action takes place through abrasion by hard particles trapped between work piece surface and a counter surface called lap. After introducing abrasive slurry between work piece and lap surface, the work piece is held against lap and moved in random paths under pressure.

TRADITIONAL FINISHING PROCESSES

Honing Honing is another abrasive finishing process generally used to finish internal cylindrical surfaces. The abrasives in the form of stones or sticks carried in an expanding and oscillating mandrel are used to generate random cross-marked surface with good finish. The stick pressure on work piece surface is comparatively more than lapping.

Advanced Finishing Processes (AFPs)

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM) Magnetic Abrasive Finishing (MAF) Magneto Rheological Finishing (MRF) Magneto Rheological Abrasive Flow Finishing (MRAFF) Magnetic Float Polishing (MFP)

Elastic Emission Machining (EEM)

Ion Beam Machining (IBM) Chemical Mechanical polishing (CMP)

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM)

It is a method to deburr, polish, and radius difficult to reach surfaces and edges by flowing an abrasive laden viscoplastic polymer over them. It uses two vertically opposed cylinders, which extrude an abrasive medium back and forth through passage formed by the work piece and tooling. Extrusion pressure, number of cycles, grit composition and type, and fixture design are the process parameters that have the largest impact on AFM results. The viscosity of polymeric medium plays an important role in finishing operation. This allows it to selectively and controllably abrade surfaces that it flows across.

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM)

Abrasive action accelerates by change in the rheological properties of the medium when it enters and passes through the restrictive passages. The work piece held by fixture is placed between two medium cylinders which are clamped together to seal so that medium does not leak during finishing process. Abrasion occurs wherever the medium passes through the restrictive passages. The key components of AFM are the machine, the tooling, types of abrasives, medium composition and process settings.

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM)

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM)

The three major elements of the process are:
a) The Tooling, which confines and directs the abrasive medium flow to the areas where deburring, radiusing and surface improvements are desired. b) The Machine to control the process variables like extrusion pressure, medium flow volume, and flow rate. c) The abrasive laden Polymeric Medium whose rheological properties determine the pattern and aggressiveness of the abrasive action.

To formulate the AFM medium, the abrasive particles are blended into special visco-elastic polymer, which show change in viscosity when forced to flow through restrictive passages.

Magneto Rheological Finishing (MRF)

Traditional methods of finishing high precision lenses, ceramics and semiconductor wafers are very expensive and labor intensive. Lenses are usually made of brittle materials such as glass, which tends to crack while it is machined, and every device that uses either lasers or fiber optics requires at least one high precision lens, increasing its demand higher than ever.

The lens manufacturer generally uses its in-house opticians for the finishing process, which makes it an arduous, laborintensive process.

Magneto Rheological Finishing

Lens manufacturing can be classified into two main processes: grinding and finishing.
Grinding gets the lens close to the desired size, while finishing removes the cracks and tiny surface imperfections that the grinding process either overlooked or created.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage to manual grinding and finishing is that it is nondeterministic.
To overcome these difficulties, Center for Optics Manufacturing (COM) in Rochester, N.Y. has developed a technology to automate the lens finishing process known as Magneto Rheological Finishing (MRF).

Magneto Rheological Finishing (MRF)

The MRF process relies on a unique "smart fluid", known as Magnetorheological (MR) fluid.

MR-Fluids are suspensions of micron sized magnetizable particles such as carbonyl iron, dispersed in a nonmagnetic carrier medium like silicone oil, mineral oil or water.
In the absence of a magnetic field, an ideal MR-fluid exhibits Newtonian behaviour.

On the application of an external magnetic field to a MRsuspension, a phenomenon known as Magneto Rheological Effect, shown in Fig, is observed.

Magneto Rheological Effect

Fig. a shows the random distribution of the particles in the absence of external magnetic field. Fig. c shows an increasing resistance to an applied shear strain, due to this yield stress.

When the field is removed, the particles return to their random state and the fluid again exhibits its original Newtonian behavior.

Magneto Rheological Effect

In Fig. b, particles magnetize and form columns when external magnetic field is applied. The particles acquire dipole moments proportional to magnetic field strength and when the dipolar interaction between particles exceeds their thermal energy, the particles aggregate into chains of dipoles aligned in the field direction. Because energy is required to deform and rupture the chains, this micro-structural transition is responsible for the onset of a large "controllable" finite yield stress.

Magneto Rheological Finishing

In the Magneto rheological finishing process, a convex, flat, or concave work piece is positioned above a reference surface. A MR fluid ribbon is deposited on the rotating wheel rim. By applying magnetic field in the gap, the stiffened region forms a transient work zone or finishing spot.

Magneto Rheological Finishing

Surface smoothing, removal of sub-surface damage, and figure correction are accomplished by rotating the lens on a spindle at a constant speed while sweeping the lens about its radius of curvature through the stiffened finishing zone. Material removal takes place through the shear stress created as the Magneto Rheological polishing ribbon is dragged into the converging gap between the part and carrier surface. Deterministic finishing of flats or spheres can be done by mounting the part on rotating spindle and sweeping it through the spot under computer control, such that dwell time determines the amount of material removal.

Magneto Rheological Finishing

The zone of contact is restricted to a spot, which conforms perfectly to the local topography of the part.

MRP Fluid
Magnetorheological polishing fluid comprises of MR-fluid with fine abrasive particles dispersed in it. On the application of magnetic field the carbonyl iron particles (CIP) form a chain like columnar structure with abrasives embedded in between. The magnetic force between iron particles encompassing abrasive grain provides bonding strength to it and its magnitude is a function of iron concentration, applied magnetic field intensity, magnetic permeability of particles and particle size.

MRP Fluid
The MR-polishing fluid has following merits:-

1. Its compliance is adjustable through the magnetic field. 2. It carries heat and debris away from the polishing zone. 3. It does not load up as in grinding wheel. 4. It is flexible and adapts the shape of the part of the work piece which is in its contact.

Magneto Rheological Abrasive Flow Finishing (MRAFF)

In AFM, the polishing medium acts as compliant lap and overcomes shape limitation inherent in almost all traditional finishing processes. As abrading forces in AFM process mainly depend on rheological behaviour of polymeric medium, which is least controllable by external means, hence lacks determinism.

The process Magnetorheological finishing, uses magnetically stiffened ribbon to deterministically finish optical flats, spheres and aspheres.

Magneto Rheological Abrasive Flow Finishing (MRAFF)

In order to maintain the versatility of Abrasive Flow Machining process and at the same time introducing determinism and controllability of rheological properties of abrasive laden medium, a new hybrid process termed as Magnetorheological Abrasive Flow Finishing (MRAFF) is used. This process relies on smart behaviour of magneto Rheological fluids whose rheological properties are controllable by means of external magnetic field.

Mechanism of MRAFF Process

Mechanism of MRAFF Process

In MRAFF process, a magnetically stiffened slug of magneto rheological polishing fluid is extruded back and forth through or across the passage formed by work piece and fixture. Abrasion occurs selectively only where the magnetic field is applied across the work piece surface, keeping the other areas unaffected. The mechanism of the process is shown in Fig. The rheological behaviour of polishing fluid changes from nearly Newtonian to Bingham plastic upon entering and Bingham to Newtonian upon exiting the finishing zone.

MRAFF Machine
The viscosity of smart magnetorheological polishing fluid (MRPF) is a function of applied magnetic field strength, and it is varied according to the desired finishing characteristics. The shearing of the Bingham plastic polishing fluid near the workpiece surface contributes to the material removal and hence finishing. Extrusion of the MRP-fluid through the passage formed in the work piece fixture is accomplished by driving two opposed pistons in MRPF cylinders using hydraulic actuators operated in desired manner with the help of designed hydraulic circuit, Fig. 14.

Diamond Turning
Diamond turning is a process of mechanical machining of precision elements using lathes or derivative machine tools (e.g., turn-mills, rotary transfers) equipped with natural or synthetic diamond-tipped tool bits. The process of diamond turning is widely used to manufacture high-quality aspheric optical elements from crystals, metals, acrylic, and other materials. Optical elements produced by the means of diamond turning are used in optical assemblies in telescopes, video projectors, missile guidance systems, lasers, scientific research instruments and numerous other systems & devices.