A Comparative Study on Ultrasonic Machining of Red Granite

Abstract

Ultrasonic machining has been proven to be a promising machining method on hard and brittle materials. However, due to the absence of high power ultrasonic machine tools, reported studies on ultrasonic machining were mainly concerned of relatively small hole drilling of the given materials. In the present work, with the development of the higher power Rotary Ultrasonic Machine Tool, two kinds of ultrasonic face machining with free abrasives, namely, Non-rotating Ultrasonic Machining with Free Abrasives (NRUSM) and Rotary Ultrasonic Machining with Free Abrasives (RUSM) are designed and comparatively conducted for the red granite, which is a typical hard-to-machine natural material. The effects of static force, spindle speed and amplitude of ultrasonic vibration on the performance of the machining are evaluated in terms of the material removal rate and surface quality. Experimental results indicate that ultrasonic machining is effective for face milling of the stone material with the designed machine tool. Furthermore, machining performances in RUSM are superior to those in NRUSM.