Special Issue Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2018, Vol. 10(1) 1–12
Ó The Author(s) 2018
A study on the effect of main process DOI: 10.1177/1687814017752212
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
parameters of rotary ultrasonic
machining for drilling BK7 glass

Saqib Anwar1, Mustafa M Nasr1, Salman Pervaiz2,

Abdulrahman Al-Ahmari1, Mohammed Alkahtani1,3 and
Abdulaziz El-Tamimi1

Abstract
BK7 glass is an important engineering material with extensive applications in high-quality and precision transmissive opti-
cal components. However, BK7 glass is considered to be a difficult-to-cut material due to its high brittleness and noncon-
ductivity. This article presents the use of rotary ultrasonic machining process for drilling holes in BK7 glass. No previous
reports have been found in the literature to experimentally investigate the response of the BK7 glass to rotary ultrasonic
drilling. The experimental investigations take into account the effect of the key rotary ultrasonic machining input para-
meters including the ultrasonic power, spindle speed and feed rate on the output responses of cutting force, exit chip-
ping, surface roughness, hole cylindricity and overcut errors, and surface integrity. The results show that the input
parameters within the current ranges can significantly affect the quality of the drilled holes. Moreover, the selected level
of any input parameter has the ability to significantly affect the influence of the other input parameters on the output
responses. Through proper selection of input parameters, holes could be drilled in BK7 glass with less fractured topo-
graphy, low surface roughness (1.32 mm), low exit chipping size (0.85), and very low cylindricity (3 mm) and overcut
(73.6 mm) errors.

Keywords
Optical BK7 glass, rotary ultrasonic machining/drilling, surface roughness, exit chipping, cylindricity, overcut, cutting force

Date received: 2 March 2017; accepted: 13 December 2017

Handling Editor: Min Zhang

Introduction their effective utilization. When compared to conven-

BK7 glass is an important material extensively utilized
in many high-quality optical applications such as lenses
in various electronics. This is owing to the superior
optical properties of BK7 glass, for instance, its high
optical stability, optical transparency, and bubble-free
property.1 However, due to its brittleness, poor thermal
and electrical conductivity, low fracture toughness, and
high hardness, BK7 glass is a difficult-to-cut material
and incurs high cost with traditional machining.2 There
is a key importance for identifying and developing the
new machining processes capable of overcoming the
challenging properties of difficult-to-cut materials for
tional/nonconventional machining methods (e.g. drill-
ing, grinding and electric discharge machining), rotary
1
Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud
University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Rochester
Institute of Technology–Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
3
Raytheon Chair for Systems Engineering (RCSE), Advanced
Manufacturing Institute, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Corresponding author:
Saqib Anwar, Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering,
King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia.
Email: sanwar@ksu.edu.sa

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open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
ultrasonic machining (RUM) is an alternative machin-
ing method which is of particular interest for the
machining of brittle and nonconductive materials as
demonstrated in previous studies.3,4 RUM is a hybrid
machining process based on the combined material
removal mechanisms of diamond grinding and ultraso-
nic machining resulting in higher material removal
rates. The ultrasonically vibrating diamond-bonded
tool is axially fed into the workpiece at a constant feed
rate. The tools employed in RUM are through coolant
to keep the tool cool and sweep away the debris during
machining.
Various studies have been reported using RUM for
grinding and drilling of various types of hard and brit-
tle materials. Churi et al.5 used RUM for drilling holes
in Ti6Al4V alloy and studied the effects of spindle
speed, feed rate, and ultrasonic power on the cutting
force, material removal rate, and surface roughness.
Cong et al.6 employed RUM for drilling holes in car-
bon fiber–reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites and
investigated the effect of cutting fluid and cold air on
the cutting force, torque, surface roughness, and tool
wear. Another study utilized RUM for drilling holes in
K9 glass and compared the results with diamond drill-
ing.7 The results showed that the rotary ultrasonic drill-
ing produced significantly less fracturing of the
workpiece surface and much lower forces when com-
pared with diamond drilling. Li et al.8 reported that a
reduction of 50% in the cutting forces and an increase
of 10% in material removal rate could be achieved dur-
ing RUM of ceramic matrix composites as compared
to diamond drilling. Choi et al.9 applied RUM for
grinding Ti6Al4V, FCD700, and S45C materials and
reported that lower cutting temperature and tool wear
are observed when compared with conventional grind-
ing. A study was reported to investigate the influence
of rotary ultrasonic grinding parameters on surface
integrity of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP)
crystals in terms of surface roughness and subsurface
damage. Their results demonstrated that RUM can be
employed for precison machining of KDP crystals
achieving surface roughness as low as 33 nm.10 Another
study presented the application of RUM in surface
grinding of CFRP composites.3 The effect of rotary
ultrasonic tool parameters including tool geometry,
diamond abrasive size, and diamond concentration was
studied on cutting force, torque, and surface roughness,
and the guidelines were provided for tool selection for
RUM of CFRP composites. It can be seen that in the
reported studies, the performance of RUM machining
process has been evaluated in terms of cutting force,
material removal rate, exit chipping size, temperature
generation, and tool wear. The results of these studies
have proven the benefits of RUM in terms of lower
cutting forces and temperatures and higher material
removal rates and quality of the drilled holes when
compared with the available alternative machining
processes.
The application of RUM has also been demon-
strated for BK7 glass. Lee et al.11 used RUM for grind-
ing BK7 glass and studied the effects of feed rate and
ultrasonic frequency on surface roughness of the milled
specimens. It was reported that the surface roughness
decreases with the decrement of ultrasonic frequency
and feed rate. Lv et al.12,13 studied the effect of ultraso-
nic vibration, spindle speed and feed rate on the cutting
force and surface roughness and explained the surface
formation mechanism during the rotary ultrasonic
grinding of BK7 glass. The results were also compared
with conventional diamond grinding process, and the
superiority of RUM was illustrated over conventional
grinding process in terms of lower cutting force without
seriously deteriorating the surface quality of BK7 glass.
Research was also conducted to investigate the effect of
the spindle speed, feed rate, ultrasonic frequency, grain
size, and cutting depth on the subsurface damage and
surface roughness during rotary ultrasonic grinding of
BK7 glass.14 Furthermore, theoretical model for evalu-
ating the subsurface damage depth was developed for
rotary ultrasonic grinding of BK7 glass.15
It can be seen from the reviewed literature that only
few studies have been reported regarding RUM of BK7
glass and are mainly centered on the surface grinding of
BK7 glass. It should be noticed that the material under-
goes significantly different loading conditions in drilling
process than those encountered in surface grinding. No
research could be found in the literature focusing on the
rotary ultrasonic drilling of BK7 glass material. Only
recently, a study has been reported to use RUM for drill-
ing holes in BK7 glass.16 However, this study only inves-
tigates the effect of ultrasonic vibration on the hole
entrance chipping and explains the chip formation
mechanisms. However, this study presents in detail the
experimental investigation of the response of the BK7
glass to rotary ultrasonic drilling. There are number of
industrial applications which require drilling of holes in
BK7 glass optics such as in optical filters, polarizers, lens,
and beam splitters.17 The main aim of this study is to
systematically present the effects of the main process
parameters of rotary ultrasonic drilling including spindle
speed, feed rate, and ultrasonic power on the key output
responses such as axial cutting force, exit chipping size,
surface roughness, and hole accuracy in terms of cylin-
dricity and overcut errors while drilling BK7 glass. This
work will enhance the understanding of the RUM pro-
cess specific to drilling holes in BK7 glass material.
Experimentation
Machining experiments were performed on a Sonic-
Mill series 10 rotary ultrasonic machine with maximum
Anwar et al.
Figure 1. Rotary ultrasonic machining setup: (a) zoomed-in view of the workpiece material BK7 glass in the dynamometer fixture
and (b) rotary ultrasonic machine.
spindle rotation speed, vibration frequency and ultraso-
nic power as 8000 r/min, 20 kHz, and 1000 W, respec-
tively. Figure 1 shows the RUM setup used for the
machining of BK7 glass. The RUM setup mainly con-
sisted of three main systems which are an ultrasonic
spindle system, a coolant setup, and a data acquisition
system. The ultrasonic spindle system consisted of an
ultrasonic spindle, a power supply, a motor and a
speed controller. The power supply converted the con-
ventional electric supply to high-frequency (20-kHz)
electrical signals. The piezoelectric actuator converted
high-frequency electrical signals to mechanical vibra-
tion along the direction of tool feed movement. The
ultrasonic vibrations were amplified and transmitted to
the rotary tool attached to the spindle which conse-
quently vibrates with a small vertical amplitude. The
amplitude of the tool vibrations was altered by control-
ling the power supply output. The rotational speed of
the spindle was varied by adjusting the spindle motor
speed controller. The cooling system provided coolant
at the diamond tool and workpiece interface to reduce
the cutting temperature and flushing the debris. Water-
miscible Fuchs Ecocool S-HL oil was used as coolant,
with a concentration of 10%.
The input parameters that were varied during the
experiments include spindle speed, ultrasonic power
supply, and feed rate. While, due to the limitation of
3
the current experimental setup, the ultrasonic vibration
frequency was kept constant at 20 kHz. A single input
parameter was changed at a time while others are kept
constant. The input parameters and their respective
values are shown in Table 1. It should be noted that
the ranges of the input parameters were selected based
on the preliminary trials during which only exit chip-
ping size and surface roughness were measured. It was
found that (1) going above the selected range of feed
rate resulted in significantly large hole exit edge chip-
ping size, (2) selecting ultrasonic power higher than
35% results in cracking of the glass surface, and (3)
increasing the spindle speed above 4000 r/min does not
affect the surface roughness.
The cutting tools used were hollow metal-bonded
diamond core drills (Sonic-Mill, United States) with
outer and inner diameters of 3.97 and 2.95 mm, respec-
tively, and 12.6 mm cutting length as shown in Figure 2.
The grit size of the diamond particles was 80–100 mm.
The drill diameter was also kept constant during all the
trials.
Optical glass BK7 provided by Esco Optics (United
States) was used in this study to check its response to
the rotary ultrasonic drilling. The dimensions of work-
piece used in trials were 50 mm 3 50 mm 3 3 mm. The
workpiece thickness of 3 mm was kept same in all the
experiments, and all the holes were through drilled.
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 1. Machining parameters and their selected values.

Input parameter Abbreviation Values

Spindle speed (r/min) SS 2000 3000 4000

Feed rate (mm/min) F 0.5 1 1.5
Ultrasonic power (%) UP 25 30 35
Ultrasonic frequency (kHz) – 20 – –
Tool diameter (mm) – 3.97 – –

Figure 2. (a) Metal-bonded diamond core drill used for ultrasonic drilling, (b) zoomed-in view of the tuning length, and (c)
zoomed-in image of the end cutting face with metal-bonded diamond particles.

Figure 3. Exit chipping phenomenon: (a) schematic illustration of exit chipping, (b) experimentally generated machined rod along
with exit chipping, and (c) exit chipping shown on the exit side of a typical drilled hole.

Cutting force (Fz) along the feed rate direction of
the tool during drilling was measured by Kistler dynam-
ometer type 9257B with charge amplifier type 5070A
and data acquisition type 5697A1 (Kistler Corp,
Switzerland). Electrical signals during the drilling oper-
ation received from dynamometer were transferred for
amplification to the charge amplifier. Afterward, the
signals were transformed into numerical signals by data
acquisition system.
The chipping at the edge on the exit side of the
drilled hole was selected as one of the factors to evalu-
ate the hole quality.7 An optical comparator (Model
VOM-2515; Leader Precision Instrument Co., China)
was used to measure the size of the exit chipping.
Figure 3 illustrates the process of identifying the size of
the exit chipping. The largest diameter on the exit chip-
ping was selected to calculate the exit chipping size as
given in the following equation. Due to convenience,
the machined rod generated after drilling of each hole
was used for measuring the exit chipping
Exit chipping size =
Exit chipping diameter  Drill outer diameter ð1Þ
Averaged surface roughness (Ra) was also used to
evaluate the quality of the drilled holes. Form Talysurf
Anwar et al.
Figure 4. Typical force–time relationship curves achieved at
ultrasonic power = 30%, F = 1 mm/min, and SS = 2000 r/min.
Stylus–120L (Taylor Hobson Ltd, United Kingdom)
was used to measure surface roughness (Ra) of the
drilled holes. Surface roughness was measured along
the tool feed rate (F) direction (see Figure 1(a)). For
measuring the surface roughness, a cutoff length of
0.8 mm was used as per ISO 4287-1:1984, and the eva-
luation length of 1.5 mm and Gaussian filter were used.
Prior to surface roughness measurements, the Form
Talysurf was calibrated using the standard roughness
specimen. The surface roughness values presented in
the results are average of four readings recorded across
a drilled hole surface. In order to further access the
drilled holes’ quality, a coordinate measuring machine
(CMM) Zeiss Accura was used to measure the hole
cylindricity and overcut. For both cylindricity and
overcut, 27 points were measured along the hole cylind-
rical surface at three levels (top, center, and bottom)
and 9 points measured at each level across the circular
profile of the hole.
Result and discussion
Figure 4 illustrates a typical cutting force and time rela-
tionship measured from the dynamometer at given cut-
ting parameters. The cutting force increases
continuously in the beginning until the tool end face
makes a uniform contact with the workpiece.
Afterward, the small variation in the cutting force rep-
resents the dynamic nature of the cutting process, such
as simultaneous cutting and fracturing of the BK7 glass
due to variable size diamond abrasives. This force var-
iation trend with the time is similar as observed by
other researchers during RUM of hard and brittle
materials.8,18 In the later results, the force values repre-
sent the maximum force encountered in the force–time
curve during drilling a hole.
Figure 5 shows three machined rods consisting of
exit chipping of varying sizes generated after drilling
the holes at given parameters. In order to make the exit
chipping visible, the machined rods were inked with
different colors. The variation in the exit chipping size
5
Figure 5. Variation of the exit chipping size at various
machining parameters: (1) F = 1.5 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min and
UP = 30%; (2) F = 0.5 mm/min, SS = 2000 r/min and UP = 30%;
and (3) F = 0.5 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min and UP = 30%.
can easily be observed corresponding to the different
machining parameters used for each hole.
The effects of the RUM input parameters (ultrasonic
power, spindle speed, and feed rate) on the cutting
force when drilling holes in BK7 glass are presented in
Figure 6. It can be seen in Figure 6(a) and (b) that there
is a decrease in the cutting force as the ultrasonic power
and spindle speed increase, whereas the cutting force
increases with the increment in the feed rate as can be
seen in Figure 6(c). This is due to the reasons that (1) as
the ultrasonic power increases, the amplitude of the tool
vibrations also increases resulting in increased hammer-
ing action of the tool on the material being cut and gen-
erate more cracks nucleation and propagation in the
material. This subsequently results in reducing the force
required to cut/detach the pre-cracked material.14 (2)
When the spindle speed increases, the cutting load is
distributed over more number of diamond abrasives
leading to reduction in cutting force, or in other words,
the amount of material removed per abrasive is reduced
as the spindle speed is increased. Similar decreasing
trend of cutting force with increasing spindle speed was
observed by Lv et al.12 during rotary ultrasonic grind-
ing of BK7 glass. (3) As the feed rate increases, the
thrust force along the feed direction also increases con-
tributing to increase in cutting force. Furthermore, it
can be observed that the effect of the spindle speed on
cutting force is more pronounced as compared to the
ultrasonic power and feed rate within the tested ranges
of parameters.
Figure 7 shows the influence of ultrasonic power,
spindle speed, and feed rate on the exit chipping phe-
nomenon. It can be observed that the exit chipping size
first increases and then decreases as the ultrasonic
power, that is, the amplitude of ultrasonic vibrations,
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 6. Variation of cutting force with RUM input parameters: (a) F = 1 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min; (b) UP = 30%, F = 1 mm/min; and
(c) UP = 30%, SS = 3000 r/min.
Figure 7. Variation of exit chipping size with RUM input parameters: (a) F = 1.5 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min; (b) UP = 30%, F = 1.5 mm/
min; and (c) UP = 30%, SS = 3000 r/min.
increases (see Figure 7(a)). The exit chipping size
decreases continuously as the spindle speed increases,
whereas it increases as the feed rate increases as demon-
strated in Figure 7(b) and (c), respectively. However,
the exit chipping size is more significantly affected by
the variation in feed rate as compared to both the spin-
dle speed and the ultrasonic power. This is in line with
the results reported by Zhang et al.7 This is attributed
to the fact that higher feed rates results in higher mag-
nitudes of thrust force along the drilled hole direction
(see Figure 6(c)). This implies that at higher feed rates,
more assertive force is available even to knock out the
thicker and wider portions of already crack nucleated
material as the drill approaches toward the exit of the
hole. However, at higher spindle speed, the exit chip-
ping size decreases because the cutting (abrasion)
action of the tool end face diamond particles signifi-
cantly increases. This is due to the fact that at as the
spindle speed increases, the depth of the cut per dia-
mond particles decreases and results in reduced crack-
ing of the material. This lets the tool to reach closer to
the exit surface of the hole without cracking/fracturing
the material and hence reducing the size of the exit
chipping. Therefore, for minimizing the exit chipping
size, lower feed rates and higher spindle speeds are
recommended. The effect of the ultrasonic power on
the exit chipping size is not explicit. This is owing to
the fact that as the ultrasonic power increases, the
vibration amplitude (hammering action) of the tool
increases which could lead to increase in the exit chip-
ping size. However, at the same time, the cutting force
reduces with the increase in the ultrasonic power (see
Figure 6(a)) which could lead to the reduction in the
exit chipping size. Therefore, ultrasonic power can have
both increasing and decreasing effects on the exit chip-
ping size. Moreover, the effect of ultrasonic power is
also influenced by the selected level of the spindle speed
and feed rate, and this is explained further later in this
section.
The degree of variation in the surface roughness of
the drilled holes with the RUM input parameters is
presented in Figure 8. It can be observed in Figure 8(a)
that there is a slight decrease in the surface roughness
with the increment in the ultrasonic power from 25%
to 30% and then there is a slender increase in rough-
ness between ultrasonic power ranges of 30% and
35%. This nonmonotonic and minor effect of ultraso-
nic power on surface roughness was also observed by
Wang et al.19 It should be commented that the trend of
surface roughness with ultrasonic power also depends
Anwar et al.
Figure 8. Variation of surface roughness with RUM input parameters: (a) F = 1 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min; (b) UP = 30%, SS = 3000 r/min;
and (c) UP = 30%, F = 1 mm/min.
Figure 9. Variation of hole cylindricity with RUM input parameters: (a) F = 1.5 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min; (b) UP = 30%, SS = 4000 r/min;
and (c) UP = 30%, F = 0.5 mm/min.
on the level of the spindle speed selected, and this is
presented later in this section. Figure 8(b) shows that
the surface roughness increases continuously with the
increase in feed rate. In contrast, there is a sharp reduc-
tion in the surface roughness as the spindle speed
increases as shown in Figure 8(c). This is attributed to
the fact that when the spindle speed increases while
keeping the ultrasonic power and feed rate constant,
the bonded diamond abrasives on the drill are able to
cut and scuff the same machined area for longer time,
resulting in improved surface roughness, whereas as the
feed rate increases, the interaction time of the abrasives
with the machined surface is reduced, resulting in dete-
rioration of surface roughness. Moreover, it should be
noted that the influence of spindle speed on the surface
roughness is found to be considerably more significant
when currently RUM is used for drilling BK7 glass
compared to when the RUM was used for grinding of
BK7 glass by Lv et al.12
Figure 9 shows the effect of rotary ultrasonic drilling
input parameters on the cylindricity errors of the
drilled holes. The cylindricity error increases with
the increase in ultrasonic power and feed rate (see
7
Figure 9(a) and (b)). Whereas the cylindricity error
reduces as the spindle speed increases as illustrated in
Figure 9(c). This might be interpreted with the follow-
ing reasons: (1) at higher spindle speed and lower feed
rate diamond abrasives are engaged with the same sur-
face area for longer time resulting in generation of more
uniform cylindrical surface throughout the hole length;
(2) as the ultrasonic power increases, the size of cracks
induced by the impacts of the ultrasonically vibrating
tool also increases14 leading to increase in the non-
uniformity of the amount of materials removed along
the cylindrical surface of the holes being drilled. This
phenomenon is further augmented at higher feed rates
first due to the reduction of the interaction time of the
diamond abrasives with the surface being machined thus
considerably reducing the tendency of the diamond abra-
sives to uniformly cut the material from the surface being
machined. Second, due to the availability of higher thrust
force at higher feed rate to knock out more pre-cracked
material from any uneven surface across the hole. For
these reasons, it can be noticed that the influence of feed
rate on cylindricity is more obtrusive as compared with
spindle speed and ultrasonic power.
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 10. Variation of hole overcut size with RUM input parameters: (a) F = 1.5 mm/min, SS = 3000 r/min; (b) UP = 30%,
SS = 4000 r/min; and (c) UP = 30%, F = 0.5 mm/min.
Figure 10 shows the variation of overcut error with
change in input parameters. Figure 10(a) shows that
the size of the overcut remains almost unaffected with
the variation in ultrasonic power, while the overcut
increases with the increment in both the spindle speed
and the feed rate as illustrated in Figure 10(b) and (c).
Again, this is accounted to the fact that the increase in
spindle speed results in higher interaction time per unit
area between the diamond abrasives and the hole sur-
face. This leads to repetitious scratches on the same
area resulting in more materials being removed which
consequently increase the overcut. Moreover, as the
spindle speed increases, the unwanted lateral vibrations
of the drill also increase,19 resulting in increase in the
overcut.
Moreover, it should be noted that the diameter of
all the drilled holes is found to be greater than the outer
diameter of the drill tool (3.97 mm). This is due to the
fact that 3.97 mm is a nominal value of the drill dia-
meter, whereas there are diamond abrasives which
would be higher than 3.97-mm level and lower as well.
This could easily be observed in Figure 11 where an
averaged scanned profile measured across the cutting
length of a diamond-bonded drill is shown. Once the
hole surface is swiped by diamond abrasives which are
higher than 3.97-mm level, an overcut is generated.
Overcut is further augmented by the level of thrust
force available from feed rate and the cracks initiated
by the ultrasonic vibrations of the tool.
More experiments were performed to see how the
variation in any input parameter can affect the ability
of the other input parameters to affect the output
responses. Figure 12 shows the effect of varying the
spindle speed and feed rate on the influence of the
ultrasonic power on the output responses. It can be
seen in Figure 12(a) and (b) that the effect of the ultra-
sonic power on the exit chipping is noticeably affected
by variation in the spindle speed and feed rate. For
example, at lower spindle speed of 2000 r/min as the
ultrasonic power increases, the exit chipping size first
decreases and then increases for feed rate of 0.5 and
1.0 mm/min, and on contrary, exit chipping size first
increases and then decreases at feed rate of 1.5 mm/min
(see Figure 12(a)). However, at higher spindle speed of
4000 r/min, the exit chipping size exhibits a monotonic
increasing trend with the increment in ultrasonic power
for all the feed rates as shown in Figure 12(b). Hence,
higher variations (slope of curve) of exit chipping are
observed at higher feed rate (1.5 mm/min) and spindle
speed (4000 r/min) as can be seen by comparing Figure
12(a) and (b). This means that the adverse effect of the
ultrasonic power on the exit chipping increases at
higher feed rates and spindle speeds.
Figure 12(c) shows the effect of the ultrasonic power
on the surface roughness at different levels of spindle
speeds. It can be seen that the variation of the surface
roughness changes from continuously increasing at
lower spindle speed (2000 r/min) to first decreasing and
then increasing at higher values of spindle speeds (3000
and 4000 r/min). Similarly, in case of the cutting force,
it can be observed in Figure 12(d) that the cutting force
is reduced by 14.71 N when ultrasonic power is chan-
ged from UP = 25% to UP = 35% at spindle speed of
2000 r/min. However, the force is only decreased by
8.32 N while the ultrasonic power is varied from
UP = 25% to UP = 35% at spindle speed of 4000 r/min.
This clearly indicates that the effect of the ultrasonic
power on the cutting forces starts diminishing as the
spindle speed increases.
The effect of variation of the spindle speed on the
influence of the feed rate at different levels of ultrasonic
power is demonstrated in Figure 13. With the incre-
ment in the level of the spindle speed, the effect of feed
rate on the surface roughness starts diminishing, and
the slope of the surface roughness curve along with feed
rate decreases significantly as shown in Figure 13(a).
This is due to the fact that as the spindle speed
increases, the plunging effect of the feed rate in the feed
Anwar et al. 9

Figure 11. An averaged scanned profile of a rotary ultrasonic drill measured across the cutting length of the tool.

Figure 12. Influence of different levels of spindle speed and feed rate on the effect of ultrasonic power on the exit chipping,
surface roughness, and cutting force: (a) spindle speed = 2000 r/min, (b) spindle speed = 4000 r/min, (c) F = 1.0 mm/min, and
(d) F = 1.5 mm/min.

direction is reduced as the cutting load is distributed
over more number of diamond abrasives.
Figure 13(b) shows that there is no significant influ-
ence of varying the levels of the spindle speed on the
capability of the feed rate to affect the exit chipping
between the range of 0.5 and 1.0 mm/min. However,
between the feed rates of 1.0 and 1.5 mm/min, the exit
chipping size is considerably reduced with the increment
in spindle speed for the same level of the feed rate used.
It was found that the ultrasonic power have no
10
Figure 13. Influence of different levels of spindle speed on the effect of feed rate on the surface roughness and exit chipping:
(a) ultrasonic power = 25% and (b) ultrasonic power = 30%.
significant influence on the ability of the feed rate to
affect the output responses. From Figures 12 and 13, it
can be commented that in general, the higher spindle
speed (4000 r/min) and lower feed rate (0.5 mm/min)
and ultrasonic power (25%) would be effective in
improving the surface roughness of the drilled holes
and reducing the exit chipping size and cutting force.
Figure 14 shows the surface integrity analysis of the
rotary ultrasonic drilled holes in BK7 glass. Figure
14(a) and (b) compares the effect of increasing the spin-
dle speed on the surface of the drilled holes. It
can be seen that at lower level of the spindle speed
(2000 r/min) significantly grooved and fractured topo-
graphy is produced along with prominent cracks on the
machined surface. However, fractured areas are consid-
erably reduced as the spindle speed increases (4000 r/
min), and a more uniformly machined surface is pro-
duced. This is due to the reason that as the spindle
speed increases, the cutting load is distributed over
more number of diamond particles, and the depth of
cut per particle reduces. This results in lowering the
extraction action and increasing the cutting (abrasion)
action of the diamond particles on the glass surface. The
effect of feed rate on surface integrity can be observed by
comparing Figure 14(c) and (d). It can be seen that as
the feed rate increases, more fractured areas are gener-
ated on the surface. This is owing to the fact that the
increase in the feed rate reduces the interaction time
between the diamond particles and the workpiece sur-
face. This leads to reduction in the abrasion action and
increase in the extraction action of the diamond particles,
causing more fracturing on the surface being cut. Figure
14(e) and (f) highlights the influence of the ultrasonic
power on the surface of the drilled holes. The fractured
Advances in Mechanical Engineering
areas increase with the increment in the ultrasonic power.
This is due to the fact that as the ultrasonic power
increases, the hammering action of the tool increases and
causes more crack nucleation and propagation in the
material resulting in more fractured topography.
Conclusion
This study experimentally investigates the application
of RUM process for drilling BK7 optical glass. The
effect of RUM process parameters, including spindle
speed, ultrasonic power, and feed rate, is investigated
on the output responses of cutting force, exit chipping
size, surface roughness, hole cylindricity and overcut,
and surface integrity. The following main conclusions
can be drawn from this work:
1. The exit chipping size and cutting force decrease
with the increase in the spindle speed and signif-
icantly increases with the increment in the feed
rate. The effect of ultrasonic power is not well
defined on the exit chipping size while the cut-
ting force continuously reduces with the increase
in the ultrasonic power. The effect of ultrasonic
power on exit chipping size and cutting force is
less prominent as compared to spindle speed
and feed rate.
2. The surface roughness of the drilled holes is
found to be most substantially affected by spin-
dle speed with higher speeds generating the
lower roughness (Ra) values. However, an
increase in the feed rate results in increasing the
surface roughness, while again there is a
Anwar et al. 11

Figure 14. SEM images of the drilled holes: (a) SS = 2000 r/min, UP = 25%, and F = 0.5 mm/min; (b) SS = 4000 r/min, UP = 25%, and
F = 0.5 mm/min; (c) SS = 4000 r/min, UP = 30%, and F = 0.5 mm/min; (d) SS = 4000 r/min, UP = 30%, and F = 1 mm/min; (e) SS = 3000 r/min,
UP = 25%, and F = 1.5 mm/min; and (f) SS = 3000 r/min, UP = 35%, and F = 1.5 mm/min.

nonmonotonic trend of surface roughness with
the increase in ultrasonic power from slightly
reducing to meagerly increasing.
3. The cylindricity error is found to continuously
increase with the increase in ultrasonic power
and feed rate, and it reduces with the increment
in the spindle speed, while feed rate being the
most influential parameter. The minimum cylin-
dricity error of 3 mm was achieved in this study.
In contrast, the overcut error is found to be an
inherent characteristic of rotary ultrasonic
drilled holes. The minimum overcut error of
73.6 mm was obtained in this work. The overcut
error increases with the increase in both the feed
rate and the spindle speed.
4. The scanning electron micrographs reveal that
the holes with uniform surface and less fractured
topography can be machined by RUM by select-
ing higher spindle speed, lower level of feed rate,
and lower ultrasonic power.
5. The selected level of the RUM input parameters
has the ability to significantly affect the
12
influence of the other input parameters on the
output responses.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to acknowledge the support provided
by the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud
University, through the Research Centre at the College of
Engineering.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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