Journal of Materials Processing Technology 180 (2006) 91–95

Ultrasonic elliptical vibration transducer driven by single actuator

and its application in precision cutting
Xun Li ∗ , Deyuan Zhang
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China
Received 2 November 2004; received in revised form 21 November 2005; accepted 9 May 2006

Abstract
The ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting has been successfully applied to precision cutting due to its superior performances, such as low cutting
force, high quality surface finish and long tool life. This paper presented an asymmetrical structural model of the ultrasonic elliptical vibration
transducer with only the longitudinal excitation. Based on the modal and static analysis with finite element method, various parameters of the
model were modified to meet the needs of the vibration modality and the inherent frequency. A cutting system of the ultrasonic elliptical vibration
driven by single longitudinal actuator was developed and the effect of the transducer amplitude and cutting depth on the cutting force was studied
in detail. A part with surface roughness of Ra 0.08 ␮m was achieved. The results showed that the ultrasonic elliptical vibration transducer can be
designed rationally with finite element method and single driven ultrasonic elliptical vibration machining can be used in precision cutting.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Transducer; Elliptical vibration; Finite element methods; PCD tools

1. Introduction
In the field of aviation and spaceflight, there are many com-
ponents that should be machined with precision cutting method.
Since they are required not only to meet the high geometrical
accuracy demand but also to have the low residual stress, yet
this is a hard task for common cutting to fulfill by using the
sharp tools and low cutting depth because of its character lim-
its. Ultrasonic vibration cutting is of the characters of superior
performance, low cutting force, high quality surface finish and
long tool life [1]. But in the conventional longitudinal vibration
cutting, when the vibrating tool leaves the cutting point of the
workpiece, the flank of the tool collides with or rubs against the
surface of the workpiece so that not only the finished surface is
destroyed, but also the chipping happens easily. The single point
diamond and PCD tools, which are usually used in the preci-
sion cutting will chip more easily, which prevents the ultrasonic
vibration from being used in widely as precision cutting [2].
In the 1990s, the ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting was
first presented to solve the problem of chipping in the ultra-
sonic vibration cutting and the technology of ultrasonic elliptical
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 8231 6603; fax: +86 10 8231 6603.
E-mail address: wwwlixun@yahoo.com.cn (X. Li).
vibration cutting was successfully used in the field of the ultra-
precision cutting [3].
The cutting tool has the cutting direction and the thrust direc-
tion in elliptical vibration mode, so the tool has a velocity
component in the chip flow direction in every cutting cycle after
it penetrates into the workpiece. The friction force between the
tool rake and the chip is effectively reduced by reversing the fric-
tional direction, and the reversed friction force assists the chip
to flow out which is much better than using the cutting oil [4].
This paper presents an asymmetrical structural model of the
ultrasonic elliptical vibration transducer with only the longitu-
dinal excitation through analyzing the model of the longitudinal
vibration transducer. Based on the modal and static analysis
with finite element method, a system of the ultrasonic ellipti-
cal cutting with the longitudinal stimulation is developed. The
experiments of the elliptical vibration cutting are made and the
results are achieved, which will facilitate the application of this
technology in the field of the precision cutting.
2. Principle of elliptical vibration cutting
The ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting makes use of the
ultrasonic excitation and forces the tool to vibrate based on the
conventional cutting mechanism. When the vibrating tool leaves
the cutting point of the workpiece, the flank of the tool does

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2006.05.007
92 X. Li, D. Zhang / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 180 (2006) 91–95
Fig. 1. The principle of elliptical vibration cutting.
not rub against the surface of the workpiece and the reversed
friction force assists the chip to flow out, which is different from
the conventional vibration cutting. Because of this, the elliptical
vibration cutting can decrease the thrust force and the residual
stress greatly. The principal force Nr and the friction force Fr act
the tool point, which form the cutting force F. The process of
the elliptical vibration cutting is shown in Fig. 1. The elliptical
vibration cutting enhances the intermittent cutting characters of
the vibration cutting and improves the quality of the surface
finish and the tool life effectively.
3. Structural design and analysis of the ultrasonic
elliptical vibration cutting transducer
The transducer is the most important part in the ultrasonic
vibration cutting system. Generally, the transducer has three
modes of vibration. That is longitudinal vibration, torsional
vibration and bended vibration. The compound vibrational
mode, such as the longitudinal–torsional, longitudinal-bended
or bended-torsional vibration, will occur when the transducer
has an asymmetrical structure [5]. And if the two directional
vibrations have a phase shift of some degrees, the transducer
will generate the elliptical vibration. The various parameters of
the model are modified properly and the mode of the elliptical
vibration that we need can be obtained.
According to the principle of the transducer design and the
demand of the actual cutting, the sandwiched piezoelectric trans-
ducer should be adopted. This sandwiched structure has many
advantages, such as the high output power, easy to be designed
and assembled. The inherent frequency of the transducer should
be set in the range from 15 to 30 kHz. At the same time, to design
the transducer have an asymmetrical structure and generate the
longitudinal-bended compound elliptical vibrational mode, the
transducer is equipped with a big tool. The structure of the pro-
posed transducer and attached cutting too are shown in Fig. 2.
3.1. Modal analysis
Making use of the static and the coupled-field analysis of
the finite element method, the author analyzes the transducers
vibration modes and gives out its resonance frequencies. At the
same time, the actual vibration simulation was carried out under
the condition of applying a sinusoidal voltage with the resonance
frequency of the transducer to the piezoelectric actuators.
Fig. 2. Structure of the transducer.
According to the proposed structure (shown in Fig. 2), a 3D
model in the proportion of actual structure was set up in scale
1:1 (shown in Fig. 3).
Because the model of the structure is small and the number
of modes to be extracted is low, the reduced solver was adopted
to analyze the modes of the transducer on the free boundary
condition. And the range of the frequency is set from 15 to
30 kHz. By means of the analysis based on the finite element
method, the longitudinal-bended compound vibration mode was
obtained and a resonance frequency of 22,500 Hz (shown in
Fig. 4) was observed.
The structure of the transducer is asymmetrical because of
the attached cutting tool, which makes the vibrational modes
of the transducer change accordingly. From the results of the
modal analysis, the characters of the asymmetrical structure
make the transducer generate a longitudinal-bended compound
vibrational mode. The parameters of the ultrasonic vibrational
transducer and the length (shown in Fig. 2) of the additional tool
can be modified properly to make the longitudinal-bended com-
pound elliptical vibrational mode meet the needs of the design.
3.2. Static coupled-field analysis
The sinusoidal voltage frequency of which is set to equal to
the resonant frequency of the transducer approximate, which
is 22,500 Hz, and is applied to the piezoelectric actuators. And
only with this longitudinal excitation, the author observed the
Fig. 3. Model of the structure.
 X. Li, D. Zhang / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 180 (2006) 91–95 93

Fig. 6. Vibration mode of the transducer.

Fig. 4. Mode of longitudinal-bended.

transducer with an asymmetrical structure can generate the

longitudinal-bended compound elliptical vibration. The vibra-
tion displacement curves of the tool point are shown in Fig. 5
(according to the coordinate of Fig. 3).
The ratio of the amplitude of the tool point in X-direction
to Z-direction is about 1:4 by applying the sinusoidal voltage
to piezoelectric actuator and they have a phase shift of some
Fig. 7. Curve of the two-directional amplitude measured.
degrees, which are shown in Fig. 5. So the curve of the tool point
is an ellipse. The mode of the transducer is shown in Fig. 6.
From the analytic results, it is proved that the transducer with According to the results, we found that the ratio of the ampli-
an asymmetrical structure can generate the ultrasonic elliptical tude of the tool point in X-direction to Z-direction is about 1:8
vibration by only applying the longitudinal excitation. Making and they have a phase shift of 100◦ . The two directional vibra-
the compound elliptical vibration meets needs of the design by tions generate the elliptical vibration. But the experiment results
modifying the parameters of the transducer. differ from the theoretical curves in amplitudes and phrases, that
is because theoretical analysis comes from an ideal conditions,
4. Experiments of the elliptical vibration cutting while the actual vibration is effected by many uncertain factors.

Based on the analysis of the finite element method and the the- Table 1
oretical calculation, an elliptical vibration cutting system with Conditions of elliptical vibration cutting
the singe longitudinal excitation was designed and fabricated, Cutting lathe SI-235 precision lathe
which is used to prove the correctness of the transducer with Spindle speed (rev/min) 200
asymmetrical structure generating elliptical vibration. To know Feed rate (␮m/rev) 40
about the elliptical mode and direction further, the amplitudes of PCD tool γ 0 = 0◦ , α0 = 15◦ , κγ = 45◦ , κγ = 45◦ , rε = 1.2 mm
X and Z-direction were measured by Precision Dynamic Mea- Cutting fluid Alcohol
Frequency (kHz) 22.5
surements made in U.S.A. and the curves were shown in Fig. 7 Workpiece LY12
by inputting the signals to an oscilloscope.

Fig. 5. Amplitude of the tool point.

94 X. Li, D. Zhang / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 180 (2006) 91–95
Fig. 8. Principal components of cutting force measured.
Fig. 9. Thrust components of cutting force measured.
Fig. 10. Slim beam with the single driven elliptical vibration cutting.
The direction of the ellipse did not coincide with Z-direction of
coordinate. And in the process of the actual cutting, the angle θ
(shown in Fig. 6) should be adjusted properly to assure the direc-
tion of the ellipse parallel to the tangent line of the workpiece.
The conditions of the experiments are shown in Table 1.
Fig. 11. Workpiece of the elliptical vibration cutting.
4.1. Forces during machining
The experiments on the PCD cutting of LY12 are made under
the conditions shown in Table 1. The influence of the amplitude
of the ultrasonic vibration transducer and the cutting depth on the
cutting force was measured by a three-component piezoelectric
dynamometer (Kistler 9256B2), which is shown in Figs. 8 and 9.
The two components of forces measured are: (a) principal force,
normal to cutting tool face and (b) thrust force, normal to work-
piece surface.
The figures indicate that when the vibration amplitude is
about 5 ␮m, the cutting force and the thrust force of the vibra-
tion cutting (VC) reduce to about 50 and 45% of conventional
cutting (CC), respectively. When the amplitude is about 12 ␮m,
the forces both reduce to about 35%. And forces of VC increase
more slowly than those of CC with the depth of cutting increas-
ing. The slim beam is processed without any supporter, which
is shown in Fig. 10.
The results show that the ratio of processing length and can-
tilever length to the diameter are 19:1 and 26:1, respectively.
And the difference between the diameter of top and bottom is
about 0.018 mm.
4.2. Influence on the surface roughness
The test conditions on LY12 are shown in Table 1 and cutting
depth 2 ␮m. The average surface roughness of the workpiece is
about Ra 0.08 ␮m, which is shown in Fig. 11.
5. Conclusions
This paper focused on the study of ultrasonic elliptical vibra-
tion transducer driven by single actuator and its application in
precision cutting, and several positive results were obtained, as
shown below:
(1) An asymmetrical structural model of the ultrasonic ellipti-
cal vibration transducer only with the longitudinal excita-
tion was presented. Based on the model, by way of static
coupled-field analysis with the finite element method, vari-
ous parameters of the transducer were optimized to meet the
needs of the vibration modality and the inherent frequency.
(2) Based on the simulation result, a new cutting system of
the ultrasonic elliptical vibration was developed. The rela-
tionships between the cutting force and the amplitude of
 X. Li, D. Zhang / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 180 (2006) 91–95
the single driven transducer, cutting depth were obtained.
The average surface roughness of the workpiece machined
with this new system was observed as low as about 0.08 ␮m,
which is smaller than that of conventional cutting. The result
indicates that single actuator driven ultrasonic elliptical
vibration cutting can be used effectively in precision cutting.
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