Analytical model for material removal rate in rotary tool micro-ultrasonic machining of hard and brittle materials

Abstract

The rotary tool micro-ultrasonic machining (RT-MUSM) process is a newly developed variant of conventional micro-USM. It is preferred over conventional micro-USM due to its ability to remove material at a faster rate and with better accuracy than the machined microfeatures. Some experimental investigations have been conducted on the RT-MUSM process for the machining of hard and brittle materials. However, the theoretical model of the material removal rate (MRR) for the RT-MUSM process has not been discussed in the literature. Thus, the present research work reports on developing a predictive model of the MRR for the RT-MUSM process during glass machining. Pure brittle fracture mode was considered to be the material removal mechanism during the model's development. The developed model was verified through experiments. The estimated results were compared with the experimental results and found to be in good agreement with each other. Additionally, statistical analysis was carried out for the prediction accuracy of the developed model. The results revealed that the model is adequate, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9976 and a mean absolute percentage error of 2.45%. Hence, the developed model can be used to estimate the MRR for the RT-MUSM process of hard and brittle materials such as ceramics.