Application of Ultrasonic Assited End Milling for Glass Material

Machining of high quality surface of glass materials is difficult in conventional machining such as milling machines. Generally, in the case of end milling of glass materials, chippings occur on the machined surface, and the surface roughness becomes not so well, and the tool life becomes short. However, if machining is possible by cutting work with excellent general versatility and accuracy, it becomes a very effective means for prototyping Micro-TAS devices and fabricating TGV substrates. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to improve the quality of machined surface by adopting ultrasonic assisted end milling method. In this method, ultrasonic vibration is applied to a rotating tool during cutting work, and an ultrasonic vibration with a built-in Langevin transducer is attached to a three-axis machining center and experimented. For the experiments, using a soda lime glass plate, the groove shape is machined using a square end mill tool with a diameter of 0.3 mm. Cutting resistance and edge chippings reduce in ultrasonic assisted end milling as compared to conventional machining.