Effect of Tool Nose Radius on Nano-Machining Process by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Abstract

Today, there is a need to understand the micro mechanism of material removal to achieve a better roughness in ultra precision machining (UPM). The conventional finite element method becomes impossible to use because the target region and grids are very tiny. In addition, FEM cannot consider the micro property of the material such as atomic defect and dislocation. As an alternative, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is significantly implemented in the field of nano-machining and nano-tribological problems to investigate deformation mechanism like work hardening, stick-slip phenomenon, frictional resistance and surface roughness [1]. One of the machining parameters than can affect nano-cutting deformation and the machined surface quality is tool nose radius [2]. In this paper molecular dynamics simulations of the nano-metric cutting on single-crystal copper were performed with the embedded atom method (EAM). To investigate the effect of tool nose radius, a comparison was done between a sharp tool with no edge radius and tools with a variety of edge radii. Tool forces, coefficient of friction, specific energy and nature of material removal with distribution of dislocations were simulated. Results show that in the nano-machining process, the tool nose radius cannot be ignored compared with the depth of cut and the edge of tool can change micro mechanism of chip formation. It appears that a large edge radius (relative to the depth of cut) of the tool used in nano-metric cutting, provides a high hydrostatic pressure. Thus, the trust force and frictional force of the tool is raised. In addition, increasing the tool edge radius and the density of generated dislocation in work-piece is scaled up that is comparable with TEM photographs [6].