International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382

The effect of tool nose radius in ultrasonic vibration cutting of

hard metal
M. Xiao a,∗, K. Sato a, S. Karube a, T. Soutome b
a
Utsunomiya University, Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, 7-1-2 Yoto, Utsunomiya, Tochigi, 321-8585, Japan
b
Pilot Corporation, 1-4-3 Nisihatiman, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, 254-8585, Japan

Received 7 December 2002; received in revised form 28 April 2003; accepted 7 May 2003

Abstract

A tool edge with a small nose radius can alleviate the regenerative chatter. In general, it is important for conventional cutting
to use the smallest possible tool nose radius. However, a sharp tool shape has an adverse effect on tool strength and the instability
of machining process still occurs. Previous researches have shown that vibration cutting has a higher cutting stability as compared
with conventional cutting. In the present paper, the influence of tool nose radius on cutting characteristics including chatter vibration,
cutting force and surface roughness is investigated by theory. It is found from the theoretical investigation that a steady vibration
created by motion between the tool and the workpiece is still obtained even using a large nose radius in vibration cutting. This
article presents a vibration cutting method using a large nose radius in order to solve chatter vibration and tool strength problem
in hard-cutting. With a suitable nose radius size, experimental results show that a stable and a precise surface finish is achieved.
 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Nose radius; Chatter vibration; Steady vibration; Ultrasonic vibration cutting; Hard-cutting; Precision machining; Cutting model

1. Introduction a mirror surface, there has been little discussion about

Hardened steel, Ni-based alloys and brittle materials
are very difficult to machine using conventional cutting
methods. Since these materials possess high strength and
low thermal conductivity, they almost always cause
machining troubles such as chatter vibration and unusual
tool wear. During the past three decades, the technique
of vibration cutting, which is an intermittent cutting
force method with ultrasonic frequency, has been suc-
cessfully applied in hard-cutting [1]. Vibration cutting
is a quite promising machining method for hard-cutting
because of its high cutting stability [2]. However, the
intermittent cutting force has a bad influence on the
strength of tool edge so that instability of the machining
process can still arise. Some methods such as adding a
leaning tool device or using a diamond-tool have been
undertaken in order to improve machining performance
[3–5]. Although these efforts were designed to achieve
∗
Corresponding author. Tel. and fax: +81-28-689-6065.
E-mail address: syo@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp (M. Xiao).
the physical cause of machining instabilities.
The major cause of machining instabilities in hard-
cutting are regenerate chatter and unusual tool wear such
as fracturing or chipping. It is important for conventional
cutting to use the smallest possible nose radius in gen-
eral, because a small nose radius can alleviate the regen-
erative effect [6,7]. However, a tool with small nose
radius still will lead to significant instabilities [6,8] due
to marked decline in the strength of tool edge. Work by
Liu et al. [9] indicated that it is possible to achieve high
surface quality in combination with a chosen nose
radius. Recent experimentation and theory by the author
of this paper [2] showed that vibration cutting has a
higher cutting stability as compared with conventional
cutting. The research [2] presented a cutting model con-
taining the vibration cutting process. When unstable
chatter vibration is suppressed by vibration cutting, the
work displacement amplitudes can be accurately pre-
dicted by the model. This chatter-suppressing dynamics
of vibration cutting is called steady vibration in our
research.
In the present paper, the work displacements are simu-

0890-6955/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0890-6955(03)00129-9
1376 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382

Nomenclature
m effective mass
x 1, x 2 work displacement in xl and x2 direction
cl, c2 damping coefficient in xl and x2 direction
k 1, k 2 stiffness coefficient in xl and x2 direction
hxl, hx2 additional damping factor in xl and x2 direction
sf low speed stability factor
Fc,Ft cutting force and thrust force
z variation of the tool angle
v cutting speed
a0 tool rake angle
g0 tool clearance angle
tl,tm deformed and undeformed chip thickness
w width of cut
y, yback work displacement in present and previous revolution
ẏ velocity of the work displacement
f,l,kab shear angle, friction angle and shear stress
f, a tool frequency and tool amplitude
T tool vibration period (1/f)
tc cnet cutting time in each tool vibration period
r edge contact rate (tc/T)
rn tool nose radius
fd feed per revolution
fo overlap-length between the previous cut and the present cut
m overlap factor
Cs side cutting edge angle
Kr maximum cutting edge angle
Rth theoretical surface roughness
Ry surface roughness

lated by using our cutting model, in order to have a good duced. The equations of motion for the cutting system
grasp on different vibrations such as steady vibration or are as follows:

再
chatter vibration. The influence of tool nose radius on
cutting characteristics including chatter vibration, cutting mẍ1 ⫹ c1hx1ẋ1 ⫹ k1x1 ⫽ F1 ⫽ Fxsina1 ⫹ Fycosa1
force and surface roughness is investigated by theory. It mẍ2 ⫹ c2hx2ẋ2 ⫹ k2x2 ⫽ F2 ⫽ Fxsina2 ⫹ Fycosa2
is found from the theoretical investigation that steady
vibration is still obtained even using a large nose radius (1)
in vibration cutting. This article presents a vibration cut-
where
ting method using a large nose radius, in order to solve
chatter vibration and tool strength problem in hard-cut-
ting. Experimental results obtained with a suitable nose
radius size will show that a stable and a precise surface
再 Fx ⫽ Fccosz ⫹ Ftsinz
Fy ⫽ ⫺Fcsinz ⫹ Ftcosz
(2)

冦
finish is achieved.
z
1⫺sf (for ẏ ⬍ 0)
2. Model for machine tool chatter hxi ⫽ g (i ⫽ 1,2) (3)
1 (for ẏⱖ0)
A dynamic cutting model containing the vibration cut-
ting process with an arbitrarily chosen two degrees of
freedom had been presented by authors [2] (see Fig. 1). where z and g are given by:

冉冊
The chatter model is described by the differential equa-
tions. In the case of vibration cutting process, an inter- ẏ
z ⫽ tan⫺1 , g ⫽ g0 ⫹ z. (4)
mittent cutting force with ultrasonic frequency is intro- v
 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382 1377

In the case of the vibration cutting process, the intermit-

tent cutting force with ultrasonicfrequency has the fol-
lowing form:
kabt1w
R⫽ U(t )t(t,r). (8)
sinfcos(f ⫹ l⫺a) 1
where the edge contact unit step function t(t,r) is
expressed as:
t(t,r) (9)

⫽ 再1 : nTⱕt ⬍ (n ⫹ r)T
0 : (n ⫹ r)Tⱕt ⬍ (n ⫹ 1)T (n ⫽ 0,1,2,%)
where the edge contact rate r denoted as the net cutting
ratio at each tool vibration period T can be obtained by
using the following equation:
af 1⫺r

冋 册
⫽ (10)
v ⫺1
v
2sinprcos cos (⫺ )⫺pr
2paf
(for 2paf ⬎ v).

Fig. 1. Vibration model of chip formation with two degree of free-
dom.
With a thin-shear-plane model for orthogonal cutting
[10], the cutting force Fc and the thrust force Ft can be
calculated from:
3. Experimental procedure
Stainless steel SUS304 and nickelbase alloy
Incone1600, classified as difficult-to-cut materials, are
used in this turning. The machinability and chemical
composition of the two materials are listed in Table 1.
Turning tests were carried out on a lathe fitted with a
vibration cutting device. Fig. 2 shows the dimensions

冦
of the workpiece holder and the workpiece used in all
experimental tests. Five different tool nose radii, rn =
Fc ⫽ Rcos(l⫺a)
0.02, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1 mm, were investigated and all these
Ft ⫽ Rsin(l⫺a) side cutting edge angles were 45°. A tool with a rake
(5)
kabt1w angle of 0° and a clearance angle of 3° was used. A tool
R⫽ U(t ) edge material with a low-cost cemented carbide K10 was
sinfcos(f ⫹ l⫺a) 1
chosen. The experimental conditions used in turning
tests are shown in Table 2. The surface roughness was
where a, tl and U(t1) take the following form: measured using a Suntronic3+ surface roughness meter
(Taylor Hobson). The largest peak to valley Ry with a
a ⫽ a0⫺z, t1 ⫽ tm ⫹ (yback⫺y) and U(t1) (6) cut-off length of 0.8 mm was taken to represent the

⫽ 再
0 t1 ⬍ 0
1 t1ⱖ0
.
experimental results.

The cutting force components are determined by the

experimental cutting database of S45C carbon steel [11]: 4. Theory

冦
f ⫽ exp(0.0587v ⫹ 1.0398t1 ⫹ 0.6742a⫺1.2392)
l ⫽ exp(⫺0.0546v⫺0.8856t1 ⫹ 0.8923a⫺0.2388)
kab ⫽ exp(0.0059v⫺0.4246t1 ⫹ 0.0818a ⫹ 6.3211).
(7)
4.1. Influence of tool nose radius on regenerate
chatter
In the present numerical simulation, work displace-
ments measured by an eddy current sensor were used to
determine the hardware parameters [2]. The effective
1378 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382

Table 1
Composition of workpiece materials

Workpiece C (%) Si (%) Mn (%) Cr (%) Ni (%) Hardness (HB) UTS (N/mm2)
materials

SUS304 0.08 1.0 2.0 18–20 8–10 187 520

Incone1600 0.15 0.50 1.00 15.5 72.0 179 550

Fig. 2. Dimensions of workpiece holder and workpiece.

mass, stiffness, and damping were determined to be m

= 0.19 kg, k 1 = 0.70, k 2 = 1.12 MN/m, c 1 = 52, c 2 =
63 Ns/m. The cutting parameters were used based on the
experimental conditions in Table 2. The cutting para-
meters are as follows: v = 58 m/min; R S = 460 rpm;
t m = 0.05 mm; w = 0.051 mm; a 0 = 0° and g 0 = 3°. The
tool vibration frequency and amplitude are f = 20 kHz
and a = 15 µm respectively. From Eq. (10), the edge
contact rate r is determined to be 0.48. In addition, a 1
= 20°, a 2 = 110° and s f =1 [12] are chosen. The simul-
ation results corresponding to experimental tests are
shown in Fig. 3. The work displacement obtained by
conventional cutting [see Fig. 3(a)] becomes larger and
larger with increasing number of revolutions and its
amplitude becomes saturated with a finite value. In con-
trast, the simulation’s result obtained by vibration cutting
[see Fig. 3(b)] shows that the growth of the work dis-
Fig. 3. Work displacement simulations. Chatter-generating dynamics
for conventional cutting in (a). Chatter-suppressing dynamics for
vibration cutting in (b).
placement ceases with increasing number of revolutions
and its maximum amplitude is a small value of 4.3 µm.
It is shown that chatter vibration is effectively sup-
pressed by applying vibration cutting, although a strong
chatter vibration may be caused during conventional cut-
ting. The figure also indicates that it is possible for
vibration cutting to achieve a machining accuracy of
4.3 µm.
In this simulated investigation, it is assumed that the
same surface between the previous pass and the present
pass is cut successively. However, the practical turning

Table 2
Experimental conditions

Tool edge Nose radius 0.02, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1 mm

Side cutting edge angle 45°
Rake angle and clearance angle a 0 = 0° g 0 = 3°
Material K10
Cuttingconditions Spindle speed 460 rpm
Cutting speed 58 m/min
Depth of cut 0.05 mm
Feed rate 0.051 mm/rev
Tool frequency 20 kHz
Tool amplitude 15 µm
 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382
operations are not always successive cuts. In order to
take the regenerate effect into account, the overlap factor
m is introduced [13,14]. The overlap factor is a constant
value between zero and one, i.e. 0ⱕmⱕ1. Chatter
vibration occurring in the overlap factor of 0 is desig-
nated primary chatter, otherwise chatter vibration is
termed regenerate chatter [14]. In the case of our simul-
ation, the surface of the present pass is modeled along
with the surface of the previous pass and so m = 1.
Experiments have shown that the overlap factor is princi-
pally affected by the tool nose radius and side cutting
edge angle [7]. For the certain side cutting edge angle,
the overlap factor m may be calculated from the ratio
between the overlap-length of the machined surface fo
and the feed rate fd [7]. An example of different tool
nose radius with the same side cutting edge angle for
turning process is shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that
the smaller nose radius has the smaller the overlap fac-
tor. For this reason, when the tool nose radius is kept as
small as possible, the regenerative chatter effect can be
alleviated. In contrast, our simulated result [see Fig.
3(b)] shows that the regenerative chatter is suppressed
by vibration cutting even using the overlap factor of 1.
Therefore, it is possible for vibration cutting to use a
large nose radius.
4.2. Influence of tool nose radius on cutting force and
unusual tool wear
The changes of the cutting force on a small and a
large nose radius size are shown in Fig. 4. The three
force components Fz, Fd and Ff are in the tangential,
radial, and axial directions respectively. In a small nose
radius [see Fig. 4(a)], the maximum cutting edge angle
Kr and the side cutting angle Cs are of equal value. How-
ever, in the case of a large nose radius [see Fig. 4(b)]
the maximum cutting edge angle is determined by the
following expression [6]:
Fig. 4. Nose radius influence on regenerate effect and cutting force. (a) small nose radius, (b) large nose radius.
1379
rn⫺tm
Kr ⫽ cos⫺1 . (11)
rn
In the present experimental condition, the maximum
cutting edge angle decreases from 41°25⬘to 18°12⬘when
the nose radius increases from 0.2 to 1 mm. Thus, a
small cutting edge angle is produced by a large nose
radius and then the extent of the cutting force Fd and Ff
will be altered (see Fig. 4). Experimental results have
also shown that Ff will decrease whereas Fd will increase
and the change in Fz will be almost negligible with
increasing nose radius size [6,15,16]. Because the cutting
force Fd in the radial direction quickly increases, chatter
vibration may be caused by the large nose radius. On
the other hand, a leading cause of unusual tool wear is
deficient in the strength of tool edge. It is considered
that the tool fracturing or chipping occurs when the shear
stress is too large in the tangential and axial directions.
Since the large nose radius decreases the cutting force
Ff and increases the shear area (the increase of the length
AB), the unusual tool wear can be reduced by the large
nose radius. Additionally, the chamfered tool edge can
prevent the temperature concentration and plastic defor-
mation so that the machining stabilities are increased.
4.3. Influence of tool nose radius on the surface
roughness
In turning operations, the surface roughness Ry is prin-
cipally affected by the shape of the tool edge profile and
the cutting vibrations, which are created by motion
between the tool and the workpiece. The error caused
by the tool shape is called the theoretical surface rough-
ness. For a given feed and tool nose radius, the theoreti-
cal surface roughness Rth can be calculated by [17]
f 2d
Rth⬇ . (12)
8rn
1380 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382
In the case of tool nose radius 0.02 mm, the theoretical
surface roughness has a value of 16.2 µm. From the pre-
ceding discussion (section 4.1), it is known that vibration
cutting may gain a machining accuracy of 4.3 µm. For
achieving the surface roughness, the necessary condition
is larger than the tool nose radius of 0.08 mm.
5. Experimental results and discussion
In order to observe the nose radius influence on the
cutting characteristics, the predicted the maximum
amplitude of vibration cutting (4.3 µm) and the surface
roughness Ry versus the tool nose radius is shown in Fig.
5. In the case of conventional cutting, a slightly increase
of the nose radius size makes the machining accuracy
worse due to the occurrence of chatter vibration. There-
fore, the smallest nose radius should be adopted in a
chatter-generating dynamics. In contrast to vibration cut-
ting, there exists a decrease in the surface roughness with
increase in the nose radius size. When the nose radius
Fig. 5. Comparison between predicted and experiment surface rough-
ness Ry versus nose radius, (a) for stainless steel of SUS3046, (b) for
nickelbase alloy of Incone1600.
is equal to 0.2 mm, the surface roughness attains an
approximate value of the steady vibration. It is exper-
imentally verified that a suitable nose radius can achieve
the machining accuracy created by steady vibration in a
chatter-suppressing dynamics.
To understand the influence of different nose radius
on the machining accuracy in vibration cutting, the
changes in surface roughness profiles and machined sur-
faces are shown in Fig. 6. In the case of the nose radius
0.02 mm, shown in Fig. 6(a), the surface roughness pro-
file has a periodical peak-to valley with the feed of 0.051
mm/rev in feed direction, then the surface roughness Ry
is 9.5 µm. For the machined surface, the cutting marks
of clear straight line in cutting direction can be seen.
The surface roughness in such a small nose radius shows
the tendency to take the theoretical surface roughness.
When the nose radius is 0.2 mm, shown in Fig. 6(b), the
edge shape peaks disappear, then the machined surface
becomes smooth. The surface roughness in such a suit-
able nose radius is improved, then it attains an approxi-
mate value of the steady vibration. As shown in Fig. 6(c)
with the nose radius of 1 mm, the surface roughness
profile has a large peak-to valley value with a longer
period than the feed of 0.051 mm/rev in feed direction,
and a large wave surface from the photograph of
Fig. 6. Change in surface roughness profiles and machined surfaces
with varying nose radius in vibration cutting (workpiece: stainless steel
of SUS304).
 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382
machined surface can be seen in cutting direction. The
experimental result indicates that a oversize nose radius
causes the occurrence of chatter vibration. It is con-
sidered that a oversize nose radius results in a pro-
nounced increase of thrust cutting force, then the chatter-
suppressing dynamics in vibration cutting is destroyed.
With an initial nose radius of 0.02 mm and a suitable
nose radius of 0.2 mm in vibration cutting, the changes
of surface roughness at the cutting length are shown in
Fig. 7. A stable and a precise surface finish is achieved
by using the suitable nose radius, while the instability
of the machining accuracy with the initial nose radius
appears at a short cutting length. In regard to the two
sizes of nose radius, the photographs of machined sur-
faces and tool edge after the experimental tests are
shown in Fig. 8. In the case of the initial nose radius,
the fracturing edge can be seen. Because of the worn
tool, the surface roughness profile with a deep peak-to
valley is produced so that the machining accuracy
becomes worse. In the case of the suitable nose radius,
a large cutting edge radius [15] can be seen. Also, the
Fig. 7. Comparison between nose radii 0.02 and 0.2 mm surface
roughness Ry versus cutting length in vibrarion cutting, (a) for stainless
steel of SUS304, (b) for nickelbase alloy of Incone1600.
1381
situation from the surface roughness profile and the
machined surface may be identified as chatter vibration,
causing the decrease of surface roughness. It is con-
sidered that a large nose radius rubbed by normal tool
wear results in the occurrence of chatter vibration. As a
result, a suitable tool nose radius prevents the tool frac-
turing occurrence so that the instability of the machining
process is markedly reduced.
6. Conclusions
The influence of tool nose radius on cutting character-
istics including chatter vibration, cutting force and sur-
face roughness was investigated by theory. Turning tests
of two different hard metals were performed on conven-
tional cutting and vibration cutting using five sizes of
tool nose radius. The following conclusions were obtain-
ed.
1. The simulation results corresponding to the experi-
mental conditions showed that vibration cutting has a
chatter-suppressing dynamics, but conventional cut-
ting is a chatter-generating dynamics.
2. The theoretical investigation showed that it is possible
for chatter-suppressing dynamics to use a large nose
radius. However, the cutting force in the radial direc-
tion quickly increases when the tool nose radius is
larger than 0.2 mm so that vibration cutting’s chatter-
suppressing dynamics may be destroyed.
3. The experimental results showed that vibration cut-
ting enables a larger tool nose radius to be used than
conventional cutting. In the case of nickelbase alloy
Incone1600, the allowable tool nose radius in
vibration cutting was 0.2 mm, while one in conven-
tional cutting was 0.02 mm. Also, it was demonstrated
that chatter vibration is caused by a larger than tool
nose radius of 0.2 mm in vibration cutting.
4. The simulation corresponding to the experimental
conditions predicted that the best surface roughness
Ry in vibration cutting is 4.3 µm. The experimental
results showed that the nearest value (R y = 4.7 µm)
of the predicted surface roughness is obtained when
tool nose radius is 0.2 mm. The nose radius is determ-
ined as a suitable nose radius.
5. The vibration cutting’s experiment using the suitable
nose radius of 0.2 mm showed that the tool fracture
is prevented and the machining accuracy is improved
in comparison with an initial nose radius of 0.02 mm.
A stable and a precise surface finish is achieved.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor in Chief
for his many helpful comments. This research was sup-
1382 M. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 43 (2003) 1375–1382

Fig. 8. Surface roughness profiles, photographs of machined surfaces and tool edge in vibration cutting (a) after a cutting length of 216 m with
the nose radius of 0.02 mm, (b) after a cutting length of 1080 m with the nose radius of 0.2 mm (workpiece: nickelbase alloy of Incone1600).

ported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of
Japan ((B) no. 14350116).
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[12] K. Jemielniak, A. Widota, Numerical Simulation of Non-linear
Chatter Vibration in Turning, Int, J. Mach Tools Manuf 29 (1989)
239–247.
[13] S.A. Tobias, W. Fishwick, The chatter of lathe tools under
orthogonal cutting conditions, Trans. ASME B 80 (1958)
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 ARTICLE IN PRESS

International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 46 (2006) 1778–1785

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmactool

Effect of plastic side flow on surface roughness in micro-turning process

Kai Liu, Shreyes N. Melkote
The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0406, USA
Received 2 November 2005; accepted 28 November 2005
Available online 18 January 2006

Abstract

Kinematic roughness-based surface finish prediction is known to often under-predict the measured surface roughness in turning
process, especially at small (micron level) feed rates. It has also been observed that the surface roughness in micro-turning decreases
with feed, reaches a minimum, and then increases with further reduction in feed. This paper presents a model for predicting the
surface roughness in micro-turning of Al5083-H116 alloy that takes into account the effects of plastic side flow, tool geometry, and
process parameters. The model combines these effects with more accurate estimation of the average flow stress of Al5083-H116 at micron
scale of deformation with the help of a previously reported strain gradient-based finite element model. The surface roughness model is
evaluated through a series of micro-turning experiments. The results show that the model can predict the surface roughness in micro-
turning quite well. It is shown that the commonly observed discrepancy between the theoretical and measured surface roughness
in micro-turning is mainly due to surface roughening caused by plastic side flow. Further, it is shown that the increase in roughness
at low feed can be attributed to the increased side flow caused by strain gradient-induced strengthening of the material directly ahead of
the tool.
r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Surface roughness; Plastic side flow; Micro-cutting; Strain gradient strengthening

1. Introduction is given approximately by the following equation [1]:

The need for products with very fine surface finish keeps
increasing rapidly because of new applications in various
fields including optics and die and mold manufacturing.
Surface roughness is an important feature of practical
engineering surfaces because of its influence on the
tribological performance of the surface. Therefore, accu-
rate prediction of surface roughness produced by a
mechanical cutting process carried out at the micron/
submicron level can contribute to improvement partly in
quality and performance.
In conventional single-point turning, the surface rough-
ness of the machined part is known to be affected mainly
by the feed and tool nose radius. The geometric contribu-
tion of tool nose geometry and tool feed, shown in Fig. 1, is
also called kinematic or theoretical surface roughness and
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 404 894 8499; fax: +1 404 894 9342.
E-mail address: shreyes.melkote@me.gatech.edu (S.N. Melkote).
f2
Rth ffi , (1)
8rn
where f is the feed and rn is the tool nose radius.
The kinematic surface roughness is widely used to
estimate the surface roughness in the turning process, but
it gives poor estimation of the surface roughness,
particularly at small feeds. It can be seen from Fig. 2 that
the kinematic surface roughness under-predicts the mea-
sured surface roughness in turning, especially at small
feeds. It is also observed that surface roughness in micro-
turning decreases with feed, reaches a minimum, and then
tends to increase with further reduction in feed. This trend
can be clearly seen in Fig. 2 for micro-turning of AISI 1045
steel at feeds less than 50 mm/rev.
It has been reported [2–6] that the surface roughness in
turning is also affected by the depth of cut, cutting speed,
tool wear, presence of built-up edge (BUE), workpiece
hardness etc. However, due to lack of understanding of the

0890-6955/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijmachtools.2005.11.014
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Liu, S.N. Melkote / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 46 (2006) 1778–1785
Fig. 1. Illustration of turning operation showing primary and secondary
cutting edges and characteristic roughness left on the finished surface [1].
surface-roughening mechanism at the micron/submicron
level and lack of physics-based surface roughness models,
techniques such as regression analysis, neural network etc.,
are commonly employed [2–6]. In particular, the contribu-
tion of material deformation at the micron scale to surface
roughening has not been accounted for in modeling the
surface generation mechanism in micro-cutting process.
A few studies on roughening of free surfaces of metallic
materials due to plastic deformation have been reported in
sheet metal forming [7–9]. Plastic deformation roughens a
free surface by producing slip bands within grains along
with relative rotation and sliding among the grains.
The effect of material swelling in ultra-precision dia-
mond turning has been investigated [10] and a good
correlation between the surface roughness and the amount
of elastic recovery has been shown. Influences of vibration
[11–13] and crystallographic orientation [14] on surface
roughness in diamond turning have also been investigated.
Sokolowski [15] suggested that there is a minimum uncut
chip thickness, below which a chip will not form. When this
occurs, rubbing takes place instead. Applying this idea to
the secondary cutting edge of a turning tool, it is suggested
that a small triangular portion of the material is left
behind. The portion left behind has been analyzed by
Brammertz [16] who called it a Spanzipfel. An additional
purely geometric term (see Eq. (2)) was proposed by
Brammertz to supplement the kinematic surface roughness
to account for the contribution of the Spanzipfel to the
surface roughness in turning.


f2 fm rf
R0th ¼ þ 1þ m .
8r 2 2
Grzesik [17] proposed a revised model based on
Brammertz’s work to account for the increasing trend in
surface roughness below a certain feed by introducing the
minimum uncut chip thickness as a function of the tool
feed.
1779
Fig. 2. Comparison of measured and theoretical values of surface
roughness (workpiece: AISI 1045 steel; tool: tungsten carbide) [1].
However, as pointed out by Shaw [1, pp. 519], the
Spanzipfel will be plastically deformed and made smaller as
it comes into contact with the clearance surface of the tool.
Consequently, it is not likely to completely account for the
observed trend at small feeds.
Sata [18] has studied the influence of material side flow
on surface finish and has found that this component of
roughness is zero for a brittle material such as brass, but
may contribute up to 6 mm to the roughness when alloy
steel is machined.
Shaw [1] also indicated that plastic side flow is most
significant at very small feeds and could be partly
responsible for the rise in surface roughness after reaching
a minimum for feeds less than a certain value. According to
Shaw, this is due in part to the fact that the specific cutting
energy, and hence the mean stress on the tool face,
increases rapidly as the feed decreases. This in turn will
cause more plastic side flow along the secondary cutting
edge. The furrow or ridge that is formed because of
material side flow will add to the discrepancy between the
measured and theoretical surface roughness. Although
Shaw [1, pp. 516] forwarded this as a likely explanation, he
did not demonstrate its validity through modeling and
analysis. The present paper attempts to do this explicitly.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study surface
roughening due to plastic deformation in turning at
micron-level feed rates, i.e. micro-turning. In particular,
the surface roughness associated with material plastic side
flow is analyzed and modeled quantitatively.
2. Plastic side flow-induced surface roughness
In turning, the material around the cutting edge is
(2)
subjected to sufficiently high pressure to cause the material
to flow to the side (see Fig. 3). As shown schematically in
Fig. 4, the solid curve shows the ideal surface profile left
behind in the absence of side flow while the dotted curve
shows the surface profile with side flow. It is evident from
Fig. 4 that the peak-to-valley roughness is larger when side
flow is present.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1780 K. Liu, S.N. Melkote / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 46 (2006) 1778–1785
Tool feed direction
tool
Secondary
cutting edge
Plastic side flow
Fig. 3. Illustration of plastic side flow generated by cutting edge in
turning.
Rp, plastic side flow induced roughness
Rth, theoretical roughness
Fig. 4. Idealized surface profile generated by tool with nose radius, with
and without plastic side flow.
Since the material pile up height at the trailing edge of
the tool due to plastic side flow is dependent on the
strength and ductility of the material, it is very likely that
the increasing trend in surface roughness at low feeds, after
reaching a minimum, is linked to the size effect in micro-
turning. It is well known that metals strengthen remarkably
when the characteristic length scale of deformation is of the
order of a micron [19–23]. Size effect in micro-cutting
shows that the specific cutting energy increases nonlinearly
as the uncut chip thickness is decreased. This increase in
specific cutting energy can arise from the increase in
material strength due to large strain gradient, temperature
and/or strain rate effects [24]. If the material directly in
front of the tool face is strengthened much more than the
material on the side, more plastic side flow will occur and
the roughness due to plastic side flow will be greater.
Consequently, in this paper, a strain gradient-based finite
element model of micro-cutting, developed and validated in
earlier work [24], is used to obtain an estimate of the
material strength in the deformation zone for use in the
proposed model of surface roughness due to plastic side
flow.
3. Proposed surface roughness model
The proposed surface roughness model is based on
mechanical analysis of a scratch test performed on metals.
The scratch test is used mainly to study the mechanical
properties of materials near their surface. The scratch
hardness and surface deformation depend in particular on
the rheology of the material, the friction at the interface
and the indenter geometry.
The behavior in a scratch test depends on the rheological
factor, x [25,26]:
E cot y
x¼ , (3)
sy
where y is the semi-apical angle of the indenter, E is the
Young’s modulus and sy is the yield stress of the material.
The rheological factor represents the ratio of the plastic
strain caused by the indenter (ep  cot y) and the elastic
strain (ee so =E).
Jardret et al. [25] have studied scratch resistance of
elastoplastic materials such as metals and polymers. They
have performed experiments with a Berkovich indenter and
measured the scratch morphology. They define a depth ha,
which is measured from the bottom of the scratch groove
to the top of the lateral pile-up (see Fig. 5) and is given by
the following relation:
ha
¼ 0:3084 ln x þ 0:3233, (4)
h
where h is the contact depth.
Bucaille et al. [26] performed a three-dimensional finite
element analysis of scratching on elastic and perfectly
plastic materials and obtained a similar relation albeit with
different coefficients.
Since there exist similarities between a cutting test and the
scratch test, the general form of Eq. (3) (given by Eq. (5)) can
be used to represent the roughness due to plastic side flow as
a function of the rheological factor x. However, the tool used
in turning has a different geometry from the indenter used in
a scratch test. Also, in turning, the tool is fed in a direction
different from the cutting direction. Therefore, coefficients k1
and k2 in Eq. (5) need to be calibrated via actual turning tests
performed over a range of conditions.
Rp ¼ k1 ln x þ k2 , (5)
E cot y
x¼ . (6)
s̄y e
Material pile up
Indent
ha
h
Fig. 5. Illustration of contact depth h and actual contact depth ha in a
scratch test.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
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In the definition of the rheological factor x in Eq. (6), an
average flow stress s̄y is used to account for the hardening
effect. An additional variable e is introduced to account for
the difference in strength between the material in front and
the material on either side of the tool. The variable e is
defined as the ratio of the average flow stress with strain
gradient strengthening to the average flow stress without
strain gradient strengthening. For more details on strain
gradient strengthening due to inhomogeneous deformation
and its role in causing size effect in micro-cutting processes,
the reader is referred to the work of Fleck et al. [22] and Liu
and Melkote [24], respectively.
The developed model for surface roughness prediction in
micro-turning consists of the following three components:
kinematic surface roughness Rth, roughness due to plastic
side flow Rp, and roughness of the cutting edge Redge:
 
Rtotal ¼ Rth þ Rp þ Redge . (7)
Fig. 6 shows schematically the surface roughness
component due to roughness of the cutting edge Redge
and how it contributes to the overall peak-to-valley
roughness height. It is seen that the surface profile within
each trough is caused directly by the cutting edge rough-
ness. However, it is obvious that this component has little
effect on the overall peak-to-valley surface roughness
height at conventional feeds. Its contribution to the overall
peak-to-valley surface roughness becomes significant only
when the feed is so low that the roughness of the cutting
edge is comparable to overall peak-to-valley surface
Fig. 6. Surface roughness due to a non-smooth cutting edge.
Fig. 7. Material pile up at the edge of groove cut at a feed of 150 mm/rev.
1781
roughness. Thus, in Eq. (7) the term Redge is placed inside
a square bracket, which indicates that its inclusion in the
total surface roughness is subject to the above conditions
being satisfied.
4. Model calibration
The objective of the calibration experiments is to
establish a quantitative relationship between the peak-to-
valley surface roughness induced by plastic side flow and
the rheological factor x for aluminum alloy Al5083 H-116,
a strain-rate insensitive material used in this study. This
implies determination of the constants k1 and k2 in Eq. (5).
4.1. Experimental design and procedure
Turning tests were conducted on a Hardinge Conquest
T42SP lathe. Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tools (TP432,
grade KD100) with 800 mm nose radius and toolholder
CTGPR-164D were used to turn a 40.6 mm initial diameter
bar of Al5083-H116. The toolholder together with the
insert gave a nominal side rake angle of 51, back rake angle
of 01, side cutting edge angle of 01 and a clearance angle
of 111.
Prior to the calibration tests, a grooving test was initially
conducted at a relatively large feed and the material pile up
height at the leading and trailing edges of the groove was
measured using a white light interferometer-based surface
measurement instrument (Zygos). The heights of material
pile up at the two edges were found to be comparable.
Therefore, in the calibration tests described below the
material pile up height was measured at the leading edge
instead of the trailing edge as it permitted easy measure-
ment. Fig. 7 shows the typical profile of material pile up
near the leading edge of the cut groove.
The cutting conditions employed in the plastic side flow-
induced roughness model calibration tests are listed in
Table 1. Three replications of each test condition were
performed. A cutting speed of 200 m/min was chosen to
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1782 K. Liu, S.N. Melkote / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 46 (2006) 1778–1785

avoid the possible influence of built up edge formation on found to be negligible compared with the cutting and thrust
surface generation. Note that in general the depth of cut force components (and hence is not listed in Table 2), thus
will influence the material pile up height. However, suggesting near-orthogonal cutting conditions. Therefore,
preliminary tests at two additional depths of cut (50 the equivalent uncut chip thickness is assumed to be equal
and 150 mm) revealed that the material pile up heights to the feed used in the turning tests. The orthogonal cutting
due to plastic flow were only slightly different. Conse- equations used to calculate the average flow stress are
quently, the depth of cut was fixed in the model calibration summarized in Eqs. (8)–(12).
tests. To estimate the average flow stress in the primary shear
The following quantities were recorded in the experi- zone, the normal shear angle was calculated from the
ments: material pile-up height at the leading edge of the following equation:
groove, cutting forces, chip width and chip thickness. The

cutting forces were measured using a three-component 1 r cos an
jn ¼ tan , (8)
cutting force dynamometer (Kistler Model 9257B). The 1  r sin an
thickness and width of the deformed chips were measured
using a micrometer and an optical microscope, respec- where an is the normal rake angle (51) and r is the cutting
tively. ratio, which is defined as
t
r¼ . (9)
tc
4.2. Plastic side flow-induced roughness model
In Eq. (11) t is the uncut chip thickness and tc the deformed
Table 2 lists the cutting forces and chip geometry chip thickness.
measured in the model calibration tests. These data were The normal friction angle bn was determined from
used to estimate the rheological factor x required to

calibrate Eq. (5). In order to evaluate the rheological factor F t þ F c tan an
bn ¼ tan1 . (10)
x, the average flow stress of the material in the deformation F c  F t tan an
(shear) zone in front of the cutting edge needs to be
The mean shear stress was estimated using the following
determined. An equivalent orthogonal cutting analysis was
equation:
used in conjunction with data in Table 2 to determine the
average flow stress for each cutting condition used in the F c cos ðbn þ jn  an Þ sin jn
calibration tests. t̄ ¼ , (11)
cosðbn  an Þtw
The orthogonal cutting analysis makes use of the
equivalent uncut chip thickness for each turning test. Since where w is the width of the chip.
the tool nose radius is large (800 mm) compared with the Finally, the average flow stress was computed from
depth of cut (100 mm) used in the tests, a relatively small pffiffiffi
portion of the cutting edge is involved in surface s̄y ¼ t̄ 3. (12)
generation. Consequently, the variation in undeformed
chip thickness around the cutting edge is small. In addition, Table 3 lists the rheological factor x (computed using
the feed component of the measured cutting force was Eqs. (6) and (12)) for each calibration test and the
corresponding measured material pile up height, Rp.
Eq. (5) was fit to the data in Table 3 (as seen in Fig. 8)
Table 1 and the coefficients k1 and k2 were obtained. The roughness
Factor and factor levels for Rp model calibration tests Rp due to plastic side flow can now be established as a
function of the material rheological factor x via the
Feed (mm/rev) 30 60 100 150
following equation:
Depth of cut (mm) 100
Speed (m/min) 200
Rp ¼ 4:3408 ln ðxÞ  23:814 ðmmÞ. (15)

Table 2 Table 3
Measured forces and chip geometry in calibration tests Rheological factor and measured side flow induced roughness height Rp
used in model calibration
Feed (mm/rev) Cutting Thrust force, Chip thickness Chip width
force, Fc (N) Ft (N) (mm) (mm) Rheological factor, x Rp (mm)

30 8.18 9.04 51 270 4.15E+02 2.2

60 10.67 8.63 69 345 4.25E+02 2.5
100 13.18 10.66 91 405 5.17E+02 3.5
150 15.69 12.69 94 645 7.14E+02 4.63
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K. Liu, S.N. Melkote / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 46 (2006) 1778–1785 1783

5 flow stress with strain gradient strengthening and the

4.5 y = 4.3408Ln(x) - 23.814 e values listed in Table 5.
4
R2 = 0.9812 The surface roughness predictions R0total and R00total are
3.5
plotted in Fig. 9 and compared with the measured surface
Rp (µm)

3
roughness Rexp and the theoretical peak-to-valley surface
2.5
2
roughness Rth. It can be clearly seen from the figure that
1.5 the theoretical surface roughness Rth severely underpredicts
1 the surface roughness in the model validation tests. It can
0.5 also be seen that the theoretical roughness fails to capture
0 the increasing roughness trend at feed values less than
0 200 400 600 800 40 mm. It can be seen that for feeds greater than 50 mm/
x
rev, both R0total and R00total yield much better predictions than
Fig. 8. Determination of coefficients k1 and k2 . the theoretical surface roughness prediction since the
additional roughness associated with plastic side flow is
considered in both cases. However, for feeds less than
4.3. Effect of cutting edge roughness, Redge 40 mm/rev, R0total fails to predict the increasing roughness
trend. On the other hand, R00total , which considers strain
A cutting test was conducted at zero feed and a cutting gradient strengthening of material in front of the tool, is
speed of 200 m/min using a new PCD tool to examine the seen to capture this increasing trend quite well. Therefore,
surface roughness produced by the cutting edge roughness. it can be concluded that the increasing trend in surface
The surface roughness component was measured by roughness at low feeds is related to the size effect in micro-
scanning the surface profile within the cut groove using cutting arising from material strengthening due to strain
the white light interferometer. Most of the roughness
within the groove is attributed to the roughness of the
cutting edge. The measurement showed that the average Table 4
roughness due to cutting edge roughness is less than 2 mm, Factor and factor levels used in model validation tests
which is less than the peak-to-valley height measured in all Feed (mm/rev) 5 10 20 50 75 100
the calibration and model validation tests (see Table 6). Depth of cut (mm) 100
Hence, it is concluded that the cutting edge roughness does Speed (m/min) 200
not contribute significantly to the overall peak-to-valley
roughness in the current study and is therefore not included
in the total surface roughness results presented below. Table 5
Average flow stress and surface roughness prediction
5. Results and discussion
Feed (mm) s0 (MPa) s00 (MPa) e R0total (mm) R00total (mm)
Micro-turning tests for surface roughness model valida- 5 375 295.5 0.79 2.30 3.34
tion were conducted on Al5083-H116 at feeds ranging from 10 358.8 292.7 0.82 2.35 3.23
5 to 100 mm/rev. The cutting conditions used are given in 20 339.5 290 0.85 2.39 3.07
Table 4. Note that the feeds used in the validation tests are 50 310.5 285 0.92 2.46 2.83
75 297.45 280 0.94 2.54 2.80
different from those used in the Rp model calibration tests.
100 265 260 0.98 2.86 2.94
The surface roughness model prediction (Eq. (7)) was
compared with the experimental measurement of surface
roughness in micro-turning. First, the average flow stress
Peak-to-valley surface roughness

with and without strain gradient strengthening for each 6

feed in Table 5 were obtained. The average flow stress 5

without strain gradient strengthening (s00 ) was obtained
from the equivalent orthogonal cutting analysis presented 4
earlier. The average flow stress with strain gradient Rtotal”
(µm)

strengthening (s0 ) was obtained from the strain gradient- 3

based finite element model of orthogonal micro-cutting 2 Rtotal’ Rexp

presented in [24] and the equivalent uncut chip thickness
(equal to the feed). The average flow stresses s0 and s00 and 1
Rth
their ratio e are listed in Table 5.
The total surface roughness R0total in Table 5 was 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
calculated from the average flow stress without strain
Feed (µm)
gradient strengthening (e ¼ 1 in this case). The total
surface roughness R00total was calculated from the average Fig. 9. Surface roughness prediction using the developed model.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1784 K. Liu, S.N. Melkote / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 46 (2006) 1778–1785

Table 6 Acknowledgment
Comparison of predicted versus measured surface roughness in micro-
turning
This work was supported by the National Science
Feed Rexp Rth Rth error R00total R00total error Foundation through Grant DMI-0300457. The authors
(mm) (mm) (mm) (%) (mm) (%) would like to thank Mr. Kenneth Niebauer at Kennametal
Inc. for providing the polycrystalline diamond tools used in
5 3.32 0.004 0.73 3.34 99.88
the experiments.
10 2.95 0.02 10.15 3.24 99.47
20 3.28 0.06 4.57 3.13 98.10
50 2.82 0.39 14.14 3.22 86.17
75 3.67 0.88 0.12 3.68 76.08 References
100 4.63 1.56 2.68 4.50 66.24
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 Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

A study on the effect of tool nose radius in ultrasonic elliptical vibration

cutting of tungsten carbide
Chandra Nath 1 , Mustafizur Rahman ∗ , Ken Soon Neo 2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Nowadays, ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting (UEVC) technique is being successfully applied for
Received 17 March 2009 ultraprecision machining of difficult-to-cut materials. Previous study reported that the tool geometry
Received in revised form 23 June 2009 especially tool nose radius notably influences the performance of 1D ultrasonic vibration cutting (UVC).
Accepted 26 June 2009
However, the effect of tool nose radius in the UEVC technique is yet to be studied. This study aims to
investigate the effects of tool nose radius on the UEVC performance in terms of cutting force, tool wear
Keywords:
and surface finish when machining a hard-to-cut material, sintered tungsten carbide (WC), using PCD
Ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting
tools. The experimental results show that the UEVC technique performs remarkably better in all aspects
Tool nose radius
Cutting performance
at a 0.6 mm nose radius compared to a lower (e.g. 0.2 or 0.4 mm) and a higher nose radius (e.g. 0.8 mm).
Precision machining When machining about 412 mm2 surface area, an average surface roughness, Ra of 0.010 ␮m is achieved
Tungsten carbide with a 0.6 mm nose radius. Analyses are conducted to justify the findings in this study.
PCD tool © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Ultrasonic vibration cutting (UVC) method has been found to
be a promising technology, over conventional cutting (CC) method,
for machining difficult-to-cut materials such as stainless steel, sin-
tered WC, composite materials, etc. With the 1D UVC (also called
conventional UVC or CUVC) method, Moriwaki and Shamoto (1991)
obtained mirror quality surface (0.026 ␮m Rmax ) on stainless steel
using diamond tool, which cannot be performed by applying the
CC method due to excessive tool wear. Moreover, Jin and Murakawa
(2001) reported that the tool life in the 1D UVC method was more
than 36 times that of the CC method while machining SCM435 steel.
With the 2D UVC (also called UEVC) method, Nath et al. (2009)
performed turning experiments on sintered WC workpiece and
reported that this method, compared to the CC method, performs
better in all aspects such as cutting force, tool wear, and surface
roughness, etc.
In recent years, the UEVC technique is more effectively applied
for mirror finishing of such difficult-to-cut materials. It is because
this method shows better cutting stability due to reverse cutting
force characteristic, which in turn results in significant reduced
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +65 6516 2168; fax: +65 6779 1459.
E-mail addresses: nath chandra@yahoo.com (C. Nath), mpemusta@nus.edu.sg
(M. Rahman), mpeneoks@nus.edu.sg (K.S. Neo).
1
Tel.: +65 6516 4644; fax: +65 6779 1459.
2
Tel.: +65 6516 6325; fax: +65 6779 1459.
cutting force, higher machining accuracy, smaller chip and burr
formation, long tool life, surface roughness, etc. Shamoto and
Moriwaki (1994) reported that the UEVC method produces thinner
chips and smallest cutting force as compared to the CC and CUVC
method. In 1999, they (Shamoto and Moriwaki, 1999) also reported
that the UEVC method shows the superior cutting performances
in terms of cutting force, tool wear, and surface roughness; while
applied to hardened steel. Moreover, Ma et al. (2004) found that the
thrust cutting force with the UEVC and CUVC methods are reduced
to about 1/50 and 1/5, respectively, that of the CC method. As a
result, the shape error of the machined workpiece is about 0.5 ␮m
with the UEVC method as compared to about 6 and 28 ␮m that
with the CC and CUVC methods, respectively. Ma et al. (2005) also
showed that the UEVC method produced the smallest burr-height of
about 1 ␮m, while it is measured about 15 ␮m by the CUVC method
and about 110 ␮m by the CC method.
It is well established that the tool nose radius is one of the vital
parameters determining the cutting performances such as regen-
erative chatter, tool life, surface roughness, etc. Chen (2000) found
that a smaller tool nose radius improves cutting stability in the
CC method by reducing the thrust force component and chatter
suppression; though adversely affects surface finish. However, an
optimized tool nose radius may vary from one to other cutting
method. For example, while machining hard metals, e.g. SUS304
and Inconel600 under same cutting conditions, Xiao et al. (2003)
demonstrated that the CUVC method showed the best cutting per-
formances in all aspects at a larger tool nose radius of 0.2 mm,
while the CC method performed the best at a 0.02 mm nose radius.

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2009.06.013
 C. Nath et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836
Fig. 1. Effect of tool nose radius on cutting force components (Chen, 2000).
They indicated that it is due to the better cutting stability of the
CUVC method compared to the CC method. Since the aforemen-
tioned literature studies claimed that the UEVC method shows the
best cutting stability, it may be realized that an optimized tool nose
radius for the UEVC method may be different from the other two
methods. However, the effects of the nose radius for hard cutting
with the UEVC method are yet to be investigated.
This study aims to investigate the effects of different nose radii of
cutting tools on the UEVC performances. Commercial PCD tools are
applied for machining a hard-to-cut metal, sintered WC (∼15% Co),
as this tool-workpiece combination has been successfully studied
in the authors’ recent work (Nath et al., 2009). The cutting perfor-
mances are evaluated and analyzed in terms of output parameters,
e.g. cutting force, tool wear and surface roughness. In this study, the
values of the cutting force components are captured at 1 min cutting
time as to consider a fresh PCD tool. Other two output param-
eters; namely, flank wear and surface roughness are reported at
2.51 m/min after 60 min continuous cutting. It is due to the follow-
ing reason. The authors separately conducted turning experiments
on the outer dia of the same WC workpiece against cutting time
(interrupted cutting with 5 min interval) at four different cutting
speeds (1.88, 2.51, 3.14 and 3.77 m/min) to observe the wear rate and
cutting lives of the PCD tools and the relevant surface roughness. It
was found that the PCD tools of 0.4 mm nose radius under the UEVC
technique could sustain about 55–60 min at a cutting speed within
3.14 m/min.
Fig. 2. (a) The UEVC mechanism; (b) an elliptical vibrator and its vibration modes.
5831
2. Effects of nose radius in cutting: the theoretical
phenomenon
Fig. 1 illustrates the theoretical phenomenon of the effect of tool
nose radius (rn ) on the force components during the CC process,
which was explained by Chen (2000). For a cutting condition where
the depth of cut (ap ) is too smaller compared to the nose radius, the
curved part of the cutting edge (i.e. the tool nose) performs the
entire cutting job. The maximum cutting edge angle (Ks ) is calcu-
lated where the cutting edge meets the outer surface of workpiece.
The relationship between the maximum cutting edge angle, the
nose radius and the depth of cut (DOC) is given by Chen (2000):
r − a 
n p
Kr = cos−1 (1)
rn
For a fixed value of DOC, the value of the maximum cutting edge
angle only depends on nose radius of a tool. According to Eq. (1),
the maximum cutting edge angle decreases with the increase in
a nose radius resulting in a higher thrust (Fy ) and a smaller axial
(Fz ) components, which can be seen in Fig. 1(b) and (c). Moreover,
an increase in a nose radius increases the overlap factor, , which
can be calculated from the ratio between the overlap-length sur-
face, f0 of the workpiece being machined in the present pass and
the feed rate (fr ). The increase in overlap factor may cause regen-
erative chatter in the CC process (Xiao et al., 2003). Since a larger
nose radius can lead to cutting instability due to these two above
reasons, the tool nose radius are chosen as small as possible in the
CC process. In contrast, a smaller nose radius may cause tempera-
ture and stress concentration due to a comparatively smaller tool
tip area and increase the likelihood of spalling, resulting in a short
tool life (Chen, 2000). Furthermore, it results in a higher theoretical
surface roughness according to the following formula given by Vyas
and Shaw (1999).
fr2
Rth ≈ (2)
8rn
However, in contrast to the CC process, the CUVC process has
the potential of regenerative chatter-suppressing dynamics which
improve machining accuracy and surface roughness (Xiao et al.,
2003). It was reported that the CUVC process performs better at
a comparatively higher nose radius due to the chatter-suppressing
dynamics, though an extreme increase in nose radius of a cutting
tool may again destroy this dynamics. Since the UEVC process shows
the best machining performance (Ma et al., 2004), it is assumed that
this process also performs better at a larger nose radius.
3. The UEVC technique
The UEVC principle was described by Shamoto and Moriwaki
(1994). Fig. 2(a) and (b) shows a schematic illustration of the UEVC
5832 C. Nath et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836

Table 1
UEVC test conditions for tool geometry tests.

Tool
Material PCD (DA150)
Rake angle 0◦
Clearance 11◦
Approach 30◦
Nose radius 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 mm

Cutting
DOC (nose radius/DOC) 4 ␮m (50, 100, 150, 200)
Feed rate 3 ␮m/rev
Spindle speed 20 rpm
Cutting speed 2.51 m/min (at OD)
Coolant Air

Vibration
Frequency 38.87 kHz
Amplitudes 2 ␮m (a)
(Type: circular) 2 ␮m (b)

each set of cutting conditions shown in Table 1. For each cutting

Fig. 3. Illustration of UEVC facing operation set up.
technique and an elliptical vibrator, respectively. Some PZT actu-
ators are stacked with the metal blocks of the vibrator to provide
elliptical vibration of the tool by combining the resonant vibrations
with some phase shift. To achieve separating type vibration cutting,
the workpiece cutting speed is chosen lower than the maximum
tool vibration speed in cutting direction. In each vibration cycle,
the cutting progresses when the tool and the workpiece move rela-
tively in opposite direction (i.e. x-axis). The tool rake subsequently
pulls out the chip away from the workpiece during its thrust direc-
tional (i.e. y-axis) motion. As the friction force between the tool and
the workpiece is reverse in y-axis, the average cutting force and the
cutting energy in this method get significantly reduced and thereby
increase tool life by decreasing tool wear.
condition, the tool was set to machine from 20 mm outer radius
to 16.4 mm inner radius of the workpiece face (about 412 mm2
machining area) for 60 min of cutting.
The elliptical device can provide a frequency, f of about 38.87 kHz
with a circular locus of 4 ␮mp–p amplitudes (i.e. a = b = 2 ␮m).
Hence, the maximum tool vibration speed in cutting direction is
calculated as (t )max = 2af = 29.41 m/min. The cutting speed was
set below (t )max so that the separating type vibration cutting is
maintained as described in Section 3.
A Kistler 3-component mini-dynamometer was attached with the
elliptical vibrator (Figs. 3 and 4) in machine set up to transmit force
signal (in terms of voltage) to a Kistler 3-channel digital charge
amplifier (Kistler 5015). Force data were captured using a Dewetron
real-time data recorder (DEWE 2010). The flank wear width of the
tool was measured by Nomarski Microscope (OLYMPUS STM 6) and
was observed under a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). All the
PCD tools were examined by the Nomarski Microscope before attach-
ing to the tool holder. The photographs of the machined surfaces
were also captured by this device. Finally, the roughness profile
of the finished surface was taken by a Talystep Stylus Profilometer
(Taylor-Hobson).
5. Results and discussions

5.1. Analyses of cutting forces

4. Experimental details

Experimental details for UEVC operation is illustrated in Fig. 3.
An elliptical vibrator (EL-50 ) was attached with spindle of a CNC
controlled ultraprecision Toshiba machine (ULG-100) to conduct the
UEVC facing experiments as shown in Fig. 4. Sintered WC (∼15%
Co) workpiece of 40 mm diameter was held by vacuum chuck of
the machine. A triangular type fresh PCD tool (grade DA150) from
Sumitomo was set at the specified tool position of the vibrator for
 in the UEVC tests accord the rule of the CC and the CUVC processes
Fig. 4. Elliptical vibrator EL-50 device in Toshiba lathe for the tests (operation
type: facing).
Considering a fresh tool, all the force values are captured at 1 min
cutting time. Fig. 5 shows the variation of the thrust, the tangen-
tial and the axial force components, respectively, for four different
tool nose radii or non-dimensional variables, rn /DOC. It is firstly
observed that the thrust component is the highest and the axial
component is the lowest. Chen (2000) mentioned that this trend is
often observed during precise finish cutting.
It can be observed that the thrust component increases and the
axial component decreases with the increase in tool nose radius
(or non-dimensional variable, rn /DOC). According to Eq. (1), the
maximum cutting edge angle decreases from 11.48◦ for a 0.2 mm
nose radius to 5.73◦ for a 0.8 mm nose radius. As the nose radius
increases, the maximum cutting edge angle decreases resulting in
a larger thrust force (Fy ) and a smaller axial force (Fz ). Thus, this
finding has a good agreement with the theoretical phenomenon
studied in Section 2. It is also seen that the increase in the tangen-
tial component (Fx ) with the increase in nose radius (or rn /DOC)
is not significant, which is similar to the previous findings (Chen,
2000). Therefore, the observations regarding the force components
(Chen, 2000; Xiao et al., 2003).
 C. Nath et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836 5833

Fig. 5. Variation of the cutting force components against different tool nose radii in Fig. 6. Tool flank wear width (VB ) at various tool nose radii in the UEVC method.
the UEVC technique (Fx : tangential force; Fy : thrust force and Fz : axial force).

However, it can also be observed that the thrust force suddenly
increases for a 0.8 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 200). As explained
in Section 2, this may be due to a quick increase in thrust force,
which destroys the regenerative chatter-suppressing dynamics.
5.2. Analyses of tool wear
Tool flank wear is a vital factor which negatively affects tool life
and surface quality of the workpiece being machined. A suitable
tool nose radius helps to lengthen the tool life by preventing regen-
erative chatter and improving cutting stability (Xiao et al., 2003).
Fig. 6 shows the flank wear widths due to four different nose radii
(or rn /DOC) after 60 min machining time. It can be interestingly
found that a 0.6 mm nose radius results in minimal flank wear
compared to both a lower (e.g. 0.2 or 0.4 mm) and a higher (e.g.
0.8 mm) nose radius. The maximum flank wear (VB ) at 0.6 mm nose
radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 150) is 19 ␮m whereas it is 27 ␮m at 0.4 mm
(i.e. rn /DOC = 100) and 25 ␮m at 0.8 mm (i.e. rn /DOC = 200). There-
fore, the flank wear for a 0.6 nose radius is about 70% and 76% of
that for 0.4 and 0.8 ␮m nose radii, respectively.
Fig. 7 shows SEM photographs of the flank wear lands at var-
ious nose radii. It can be seen that the tool worn out maximum

Fig. 7. SEM photographs of PCD tool flank at various tool nose radii in the UEVC method.
5834 C. Nath et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836

(37.5 ␮m) at 0.2 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 50) whereas it is

minimal (19 ␮m) at 0.6 mm (i.e. rn /DOC = 150). Thus a 0.6 mm nose
radius prolongs the tool life in the UEVC process when machining
sintered WC using PCD tools. However, the wear lands at 0.4 and
0.8 mm nose radii are of similar patterns and almost equal.
The findings for a larger nose radius can be explained by afore-
mentioned reasons in Section 2. Though a smaller nose radius
is preferable to avoid regenerative chatter in the CC process
(Chen, 2000), the CUVC process shows better cutting stability at
a larger nose radius because of a higher potential of regenera-
tive chatter-suppressing dynamics (Xiao et al., 2003). Similar to
the CUVC process, the UEVC tests in this study shows the low-
est tool flank wear at a comparatively larger nose radius (e.g.
0.6 mm in Fig. 7(c)). However, the chatter-suppressing dynam-
ics may be destroyed for an extremely larger nose radius (e.g.
0.8 mm) due to quick increase in thrust force component (Xiao et
al., 2003). The findings shown in Figs. 6 and 7(d) confirm this phe-
nomenon. Thus, when machining sintered WC using PCD tools, a Fig. 8. End of test average and maximum surface roughness values at various tool
0.6 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 150) in the UEVC process extends nose radii.
tool life by compromising with the chatter-suppressing dynam-
ics. dimensional variable, rn /DOC) on Ra and Rz values taken in traverse
(or feed) direction after 60 min cutting time in cutting of WC using
5.3. Analyses of surface roughness PCD tools. Subsequently, Fig. 9 shows the corresponding T–H pro-
files of the machined surfaces.
The main objective in ultraprecision machining is to achieve a Both the figures illustrate that a 0.6 mm nose radius (i.e.
high-surface quality which is predicted by average and maximum rn /DOC = 150) produces a highly precise surface (0.0101 ␮m Ra and
roughness values (Ra and Rz , respectively) of the workpiece being 0.0610 ␮m Rz ) as compared to the other nose radii (or rn /DOCs);
machined. Fig. 8 shows the effect of different nose radii (or non- though a 0.8 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 200) is still incompara-

Fig. 9. T–H profiles of the machined surfaces at different tool nose radii after 60 min cutting time.
 C. Nath et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836 5835

ble in terms of the Ra value (0.0110 ␮m). However, the Rz values for a
0.4 and a 0.8 mm nose radii (Fig. 9(b) and (d)) are comparable with
a 0.6 mm nose radius (Fig. 9(c)). The surface roughness spectrum
for a 0.6 mm nose radius is smoother and consistent compared to
the inconsistent roughness spectrums for a 0.4 and a 0.8 mm nose
radii in Fig. 9(b) and (d). The higher values of Rz for a 0.4 and a
0.8 mm nose radius indicate that they may produce fractured sur-
faces. However, a 0.2 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 50)) produces
worst surface (0.0282 ␮m Ra and 0.1440 ␮m Rz ) compared to the
other nose radii.
Fig. 10 shows the Nomarski photographs of the machined sur-
faces at 5 min and 58 min cutting times, which are captured at 500×
magnification. As the workpiece is machined on the face surface
from 20 mm outer to 16.40 mm inner radius for all the tests, it
is unrealistic to observe the machined surface by the microscope
at 60 min cutting time due to two different altitudes and thus the

Fig. 10. Nomarski photographs of the machined surfaces at the initial (about 5 min) and near to the end of test (about 58 mins) at various tool nose radii.
5836 C. Nath et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 5830–5836
photographs are taken at 58 min cutting time meaning close to the
end of test. It is again observed here that the surface produced at
a 0.2 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 50) is worst (Fig. 10(a)). Also,
since the tool of 0.2 mm nose radius has the highest flank wear
rate (Figs. 6 and 7), it could not sustain the cutting up to 60 min
and hence produced very high fractured surface compared to the
other nose radii. Among the other three nose radii, a 0.6 mm nose
radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 150) produces the best surface till 60 min as
the cutting grooves in cutting direction even at 58 min are clearly
seen compared to that for a 0.4 and a 0.8 mm nose radius. The
surface produced at a 0.8 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 200) is con-
taining fractures even in the beginning of the cutting (e.g. 5 min).
As the regenerative chatter, as discussed in Section 2, comes into
effect at the largest nose radius (0.8 mm) due to quick decrease
in maximum cutting edge angle and increase in thrust force, the
chatter-suppression dynamics may be destroyed (Xiao et al., 2003).
As the tool nose worsen due to larger thrust force at a higher nose
radius of 0.8 mm (Figs. 6 and 7), the feed marks on the machined
surface do not clearly appear as seen in Fig. 10(d). The tool wear
data in Figs. 6 and 7 and the surface roughness data in Figs. 8–10
also reveal that a PCD tool of 0.6 mm nose radius (i.e. rn /DOC = 150)
can efficiently machine the WC workpiece for 60 min cutting time
with improved cutting performances. It is thus considered that the
PCD tool cannot machine the WC workpiece finely at a smaller nose
radius (e.g. 0.2 or 0.4 mm) and a larger nose radius (0.8 mm) com-
pared to a 0.6 mm nose radius while applying the UEVC technique.
Usually, a finished surface of less than 0.020 ␮m Ra is preferred
for mould manufacture of optical glass, for example, as this range
is considered as mirror finish. In view of machining cost, it should
be well-accepted by the mould manufacturers that if such surface
finish for machining hard and brittle materials (e.g. WC) can be
achieved by not only a single machining process but also using
inexpensive PCD tools (compared to a single crystal diamond tool).
The surface roughness values (Ra = 0.0101 ␮m, Rz = 0.0610 ␮m) in
Figs. 8 and 9(c), the smooth profile in Fig. 9(c), and the images of
the finished surface at the initial (about 5 min) and near to the end
of test (about 58 min) in Fig. 10(c) clearly reveal that the surface
quality achieved on about 412 mm2 area for machining WC using a
PCD tool with 0.6 mm nose radius (or rn /DOC = 150) can be directly
applied to such mould manufacturing without further polishing.
Another interesting finding in this study is that a larger nose
radius can be used for a comparatively higher stable cutting pro-
cess. According to Ma et al. (2004), the UEVC process is highly stable
followed by the CUVC process and the CC process is comparatively
unstable. Following this cutting stability criteria, the UEVC pro-
cess performs better at 0.6 mm nose radius in this study, whereas
the CUVC and the CC processes performed better at 0.2 mm and
0.02 mm nose radii, respectively (Xiao et al., 2003). Thus it is con-
sidered that a 0.6 mm nose radius in the UEVC process achieves
comparatively higher regenerative chatter-suppressing dynamics
resulting in better cutting performance in all aspects such as cut-
ting forces, tool flank wear and surface finish when machining WC
using PCD tools.
6. Conclusions
In this study, the effects of various tool nose radiuses on the
UEVC performance are performed in terms of cutting forces, tool
flank wear and surface finish. Based on the experimental find-
ings and the theoretical analyses, the following conclusions are
made:
1. A 0.6 mm nose radius (or rn /DOC of 150) performs better in all
aspects compared to a smaller (e.g. 0.2 or 0.4 mm) and a larger
(e.g. 0.8 mm) nose radius (i.e. rn /DOCs of 50, 100 and 200) when
machining WC using PCD tools. A surface of 0.010 ␮m Ra and
0.061 ␮m Rz was achieved at this optimum nose radius when
machining on about 412 mm2 surface area.
2. Though a smaller nose radius is considered for the CC process
to avoid regenerative chatter, a larger nose radius is suitable in
the UEVC process as the later process has capability of chatter
suppression.
3. The increase in nose radius in the UEVC process may alleviate
regenerative chatter resulting in longer tool life and highly pre-
cise surface finishing. Thus the UEVC process has a good deal
with a larger tool nose radius to compromise with the chatter-
suppressing dynamics.
4. However, an extreme increase in nose radius may again destroy
the chatter-suppression dynamics due to quick decrease in max-
imum cutting edge angle and increase in thrust force which
results in higher cutting forces, higher tool flank wear and worst
surface finish.
5. Thus the test results show that the PCD tools of 0.6 mm nose
radius can be successfully applied for ultraprecision machin-
ing of sintered WC by applying the UEVC process which can be
directly used to mould manufacture without applying further
polishing process.
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