Morphological behavior and wear of polyurethane pads used in glass polishing process

Abstract

► Polyurethane polishing pads wear behavior. ► Pads wear has not a significant influence on the surface roughness during the first 2 h of polishing process. ► The porous polyurethane polishing pads lifetime is more than 2 h in the case of glass polishing. ► Shape accuracy is influenced by the pad filling and the alteration of the elastically characteristics. The porous polyurethane polishing pads are used in the optical glass chemical mechanical polishing process. The wear of the polishing pad and morphology are important for the polishing process efficiency and the surface quality. The subject of this work is to evaluate the morphology and wear of porous polyurethane polishing pads, and their influence on the material removal rate and quality in the optical glass chemical mechanical polishing process. For this study, several optical glass polishing operations were done using different porous polyurethane polishing pads. The polishing pads were recovered after polishing to be characterized using several techniques such as: the SEM, the optical microscopy and the mechanical profilometry. The obtained results show, that the polyurethane polishing pads produce good surface quality with high material removal rate. The polyurethane polishing pads are relatively wear resistant in the first hour of use; however some changes were seen on the polishing pads, and their characteristics. The most conspicuous change is the abrasive grains incrustation in the polishing pads microstructure that changes their properties.