A new two-dimensional ultrasonic assisted grinding (2D-UAG) method and its fundamental performance in monocrystal silicon machining

A new two-dimensional (i.e., elliptical) ultrasonic assisted grinding (UAG) technique is proposed to achieve high material removal rate and high surface quality in the machining of hard and brittle materials such as monocrystal silicon. In this method, the workpiece attached on an elliptical ultrasonic vibrator is ground with a resin bond diamond grinding wheel under the presence of elliptical ultrasonic vibration. The elliptical ultrasonic vibrator is produced by bonding a piezoelectric ceramic device (PZT) on a metal elastic body (stainless steel, SUS304) and its detailed structure/dimensions are determined by FEM (finite element method) analysis. When two alternating current voltages with a phase difference are applied to the PZT at the same frequency that is close to the resonant frequency of the longitudinal mode and bending mode of vibrator, two ultrasonic vibrations are generated simultaneously, and the synthesis of the vibrations results in an elliptical motion on the end face of the vibrator. If the phase difference is set at 0° or 180°, two kinds of one-dimensional ultrasonic vibrations, i.e., axial or vertical vibrations, can be obtained. Grinding experiments are carried out involving monocrystal silicon to confirm the performance of the proposed elliptical UAG. In addition, grinding experiments under the presence of the axial and vertical ultrasonic vibrations and the absence of ultrasonic vibrations, i.e., conventional grinding, are also carried out for comparison. The obtained results show that: (1) compared with conventional grinding, the axial ultrasonic vibration results in greatest improvement in the work surface quality and a slight reduction in the grinding forces; (2) under the vertical ultrasonic vibration, the grinding forces are decreased significantly but the surface roughness is increased slightly; (3) elliptical ultrasonic vibration leads to the significant reduction of both the surface roughness and grinding forces. These indicate that the high efficiency and high-quality grinding of monocrystal silicon can be performed with the proposed two-dimensional ultrasonic assisted grinding technique.