Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

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Precision Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/precision

Effects of abrasive material and particle shape on machining performance in T

micro ultrasonic machining
⁎
Jingsi Wanga,b, , Keita Shimadaa, Masayoshi Mizutania, Tsunemoto Kuriyagawac
a
Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aramaki Aoba 6-6-01, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan
b
Marine Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, 1 Linghai Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian, 116026, China
c
Department of Biomechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Aramaki Aoba 6-6-12, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: UltraSonic Machining (USM) shows potentialities in many manufacturing uses including fabricating structures of
Ultrasonic machining any shapes on hard and brittle materials. However, the nature of the mechanism of this process is still not clear.
Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) Crack generation for material removal and wear mechanism of abrasive particles and machining tools have not
Material removal mechanism been thoroughly understood. Therefore, this paper presents a new method for studying USM by using a nu-
Abrasive shape
merical simulation model built with both Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) meshfree method and Finite
Cracks
Element Method (FEM). Two main particle shapes: cubical and spherical shapes filled by SiC and Al2O3 materials
Wear of abrasive particle
were incorporated in the simulation models for studying the fracture process of the workpiece and abrasive
particles. Hole drilling experiments by USM were also conducted to validate the simulation results. Both of the
experimental and simulation results suggest that hard abrasive particles possessing spherical shapes resist wear
better and it improves the material removal efficiency. However, the surface quality was inverse, large cracks
were found to be remaining on the machined surfaces after etching. The best machining result was obtained with
spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles in this work. The tool feed rate can be up to 40 μm/s, the cracks were less than
5 μm and 4 μm in depth for bottom and wall surfaces after etching, and the tool wear was the lowest. These
results help us better understanding the nature of USM and provide technological indicators for selecting suitable
process parameters for improving the machining performance.

1. Introduction
The interest in the use of hard and brittle materials, such as glass,
ceramics and quartz crystal, grows stronger in the recent years due to
their superior properties like high corrosion resistance, high hardness
and high strength. These materials are used today around the world in a
wide variety of electronic devices, optical components, and automotive
parts which generally have strict design requirements and tend to be
miniaturization, integration and functionalization. Therefore, it needs
to manufacture various micro-structures including shapes with high
aspect ratios on hard and brittle materials. However, due to the ex-
cellent mechanical properties of such materials, the machining cycle is
quite long and the production cost is high. Particularly, feasible tradi-
tional machining technologies such as grinding, lapping, and polishing
are unable to obtain deep holes of various cross-sectional shapes on
hard and brittle materials.
Micro UltraSonic Machining (micro-USM) using an ultrasonically
vibrated tool in conjunction with abrasive particles suspended in a li-
quid slurry for material removal has been widely proposed to solve the
problems mentioned above [1]. Fig. 1 shows a schematic view of the
basic components of USM apparatus constructed with either a magne-
tostrictive or piezoelectric transducer. Micro-USM is similar to the
conventional USM but reducing the tool diameter, abrasive size and
vibration amplitude into micro scale [2]. In this process, abrasive
particles in the slurry flow through the working zone and penetrate the
workpiece repeatedly by the propulsion of the vibrated tool, inducing
countless tiny brittle fractures for material removal. It differs from
energy-based micro-machining methods including Electric Discharge
Machining (EDM), ElectroChemical Machining (ECM) and Laser Beam
Machining (LBM), because no thermal or electrical phenomena occur.
Also, USM does not require a clean room environment like Micro-
Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, so this process is cost-
effective for manufacturing various extraordinarily hard and brittle
materials.
However, due to the utilization of micro-scale abrasive particles and
ultrasonic vibration amplitude, the material removal rate is always low.
In addition, the brittle products fabricated by USM are most likely to
contain surface/subsurface micro-cracks [4,5]. For micro parts, these

⁎
Corresponding author at: Marine Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, 1 Linghai Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian, 116026, China
E-mail address: jixiewangjingsi@hotmail.com (J. Wang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.precisioneng.2017.09.008
Received 29 June 2017; Received in revised form 11 August 2017; Accepted 31 August 2017
Available online 25 September 2017
0141-6359/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
J. Wang et al.
cracks may seriously vary the surface properties and bring about
strength degradation. This consequently influences the reliability,
productivity and service-life of the machined components. The actual
utilization of micro-USM has been quite limited because of the diffi-
culties for ensuring the surface quality and machining efficiency si-
multaneously. Thus, it is essential to study the crack generation and its
relation to material removal in micro-USM so as to improve the ma-
chining performance.
Many researchers have attempted to build theoretical models for
explaining the material removal mechanism since the USM technology
is established [6–8]. On the other hand, experimental studies on USM
have also been widely conducted to investigate the effects of different
process parameters on material removal [9–12]. However, a total un-
derstanding of the mechanism is still not obtained due to the com-
plexity of the process parameters. A prediction method for selecting
suitable machining conditions such as abrasive material and particle
shape is absent. Thus, further studies should be conducted to clarify
them.
In our work, the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method
which is a meshfree numerical technique was firstly used to simulate
the USM process for investigating the material removal [13,14]. Pro-
pagation of cracks in substrates and fractures of abrasive particles in
USM were demonstrated. However, in these former works, the tool
deformation and the tool-abrasive contact [14] were not discussed in
the SPH models, which makes a comprehensive grasp of USM im-
possible. In this paper, to better understand the USM process, the si-
mulation model was improved by considering the effects of the tool
deformation and the real tool-abrasive contact area. Different materials
and particle shapes were applied for abrasive modeling for discussing
the effects of abrasive types. Crack formation in the workpiece, essen-
tial features of fracture process in abrasive particles, and tool de-
formation with different types of abrasive particles were studied
through the models. Experiments were conducted to verify the simu-
lation results. The material removal rate, crack distribution on ma-
chined surfaces, wear of abrasive particles and tools were investigated.
The nature of the material removal mechanism was further studied by
using these results.
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
Fig. 1. Schematic of the basic elements of an USM
set up (Adapted from [3]).
2. Modeling and simulation results
2.1. SPH method
SPH is originally introduced by Lucy [15], Gingold & Monaghan
[16] for solving astrophysical problems in three-dimensional open
space. In SPH, the system is represented by a set of particles which are
carrying material properties and interacting with each other according
to the governing conservation equations. It has some potential ad-
vantages comparing with the conventional grid-based Lagrange tech-
niques such as FEM [17,18] including the suitability for solving pro-
blems involved in large deformations and fractures, because error due
to mesh distortion and tangling in the FEM could be avoided. In fracture
processes, SPH can well demonstrate the crack distribution [19], which
makes it possible to study the crack generation and mateiral removal of
hard and brittle materials in USM. This section will present the SPH
simulation approach and results.
2.2. Material modeling
In this work, glass was used for workpiece modeling; silicon carbide
(SiC) and alumina (Al2O3) were employed as abrasive materials for
comparison; SS304 referred to stainless steel (AISI:304) was utilized for
tool modeling. For the hard and brittle workpiece and abrasive mate-
rials which have high compressive strength but low tensile strength, the
Mie-Grüneisen polynomial equation of state [20] was employed to
describe the initial elastic response of the materials. In this material
model, the hydrostatic pressure P is
P = A1 μ + A2 μ2 + A3 μ3 + (B0 + B1 μ) ρ0 e (μ > 0 compression) (1)
P = T1 μ + T2 μ2 + B0 ρ0 e (μ < 0 Tension) (2)
where A1, A2, A3, B0, B1, T1 and T2 are constants (A1 is the bulk mod-
ulus); e is the internal energy; and μ = ρ/ρ0 − 1 for current density ρ
and initial density ρ0, which is a variation of the volumetric strain.
On the other hand, the strength and damage behavior of these hard
and brittle materials were modeled with Johnson-Holmquist material
model, which was first developed with the aim of facilitating simula-
tions of ballistic problems. The model defines that the material damage
accumulates for fracture, which is tracked via a damage parameter D
J. Wang et al. Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

(ranging from 0 to 1.0). For undamaged material, D = 0, while for

entirely fractured material, D = 1.0. Otherwise, it indicates that irre-
coverable plastic strain occurs, and the material is considered to be
partially damaged [21]. This damage parameter is expressed as
ΔεP
D= ∑
εPf (3)
where ΔεP is the increment of equivalent plastic strain during one cycle
of integration and εPf is the equivalent plastic strain at failure under a
constant pressure. The detailed definition of the strength and damage
behavior is introduced in the publications by Johnson and Holmquist
[22,23].
For SS304 material, the Shock equation of state [20,24] was used. In
this model, the Hugoniot relations [24] is selected as the reference
function for the Mie-Grüneisen equation of state. The strength of SS304
is formed by Steinberg-Guinan model [25]. The constitutive relations
for Steinberg-Guinan model are represented in the forms

⎡ G′ P G ′ ⎤
G = G0 ⎢1 + ⎛ P ⎞ 1 + ⎛ T ⎞ (T − 300) ⎥
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟

⎝ G0 ⎠η 3 ⎝ G0 ⎠ (4)
⎣ ⎦

⎡ Y′ P G ′ ⎤
Y = Y0 [1 + κ (ε + εi )n] ⎢1 + ⎛ P ⎞ 1 + ⎛ T ⎞ (T − 300) ⎥
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟

⎝ Y0 ⎠ η 3 ⎝ G0 ⎠ (5)
⎣ ⎦
where G is the shear modulus, Y is the yield strength, ε is the equivalent
plastic strain, P is pressure and T is temperature. κ and n are work-
hardening parameters.
The important parameters for glass [26,27], SiC [28], Al2O3 [29]
and SS304 [30] are summarized in Table 1.

2.3. Model geometry and boundary conditions

All calculations were conducted using the computer program

AUTODYN from Century Dynamics, which is a subsidiary of ANSYS
incorporation. The SPH is usually more expensive in computation time
because the algorithm takes more time to find neighboring particles.
Therefore, in our models, the SPH is used together with the grid-based
Lagrange solver. This allows material in small deformation to be con-
structed with the finite element mesh and reduces the calculation
amount. Snapshots of the finished models are shown in Fig. 2. To
minimize the computation time without compromising the calculation
accuracy, the smoothing length of SPH is set to be 200 nm based on a
number of trial simulations. The finite element mesh size is 1 μm for
workpiece, and a minimum element size of 0.25 μm is used in the tool
close to the impact region for studying the tool deformation. Coarser
meshes are employed in the tool farther away to reduce the calculation
time. All nodes on the bottom and side surfaces of the workpiece are

Table 1
Material models and important parameters.

Float glass SiC Al2O3 SS304

Equation of state Polynomial Polynomial Polynomial Shock

Density g/cm3 2.53 3.215 3.89 7.9
Bulk modulus 45.4 220 231 None
Grüneisen None None None 1.93
coefficient Γ
Strength Johnson- Johnson- Johnson- Steinberg-
Holmquist Holmquist Holmquist Guinan
Shear modulus 30.4 193.5 152 77 (G0) Fig. 2. Snapshots of the initial state of the simulation models.
GPa
Hugoniot elastic 5.95 11.7 6.57 None
limit GPa constrained in the direction of z and x/y axes, respectively.
Yield stress MPa None None None 340 (Y0) The SPH model incorporates two main shapes: cubical and spherical
Failure Johnson- Johnson- Johnson- None shapes, which represent abrasive particles with and without sharp
Holmquist Holmquist Holmquist
corners. A sphere has no specific orientation, so there is no need to care
Hydro tensile 150 750 262 None
limit MPa the orientation between a spherical particle and the workpiece at the

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J. Wang et al.
Fig. 3. Probability for each part of a cubical abrasive to first contact the workpiece.
moment of impact. Contrastingly, a cube has six faces, eight vertices,
and twelve edges, and it is uncertain which part firstly touches the
workpiece. If the push of the tool and the rotation of the abrasive
particle are not considered, the probability for each part of the sus-
pended abrasive to first come in contact with the workpiece can be
approximated as follows. Assume that the cubical abrasive rotates
about x and y axes at the same time (the x, and y axes pass through the
center of the cube and the center of the opposite faces) as shown in
Fig. 3, the angle of the rotation about the x axis and y axis is noted as α
and ω, respectively. When α = ω = 0°, one face of the cubical abrasive
particle is considered in contact with the workpiece/tool, which is
named face contact. The other two cases are accordingly called the edge
contact and the vertex contact. Based on these assumptions, the prob-
ability for the vertex contact, edge contact, and face contact is as de-
picted in the same figure. The descending order of the event probability
of each contact is the vertex contact, the edge contact, and the face
contact. In addition, in the real machining process, the abrasive pos-
sesses many surface irregularities, which finally gives many sharp
corners and edges. Therefore, in the simulation of cubical abrasive
particle, both the vertex contact and the edge contact were modeled,
whereas the face contact was not discussed.
The motion of the tool in USM is schematically shown in Fig. 4.
Materials are removed by repeated impacts of the tool, which vibrates
ultrasonically along a sinusoidal locus. Considering one cycle of this
vibration, the tool moves down from its mean position towards to the
work surface. At a position S (displacement of y0, velocity of v0), it
begins to touch abrasive particles in the slurry as shown in the figure.
The tool continues to move downwards until the end of its vibration
stroke (achieve the vibration amplitude a0), and then moves back to the
mean position. The solid curve indicates the displacement of the
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
Fig. 5. Velocity condition of the ultrasonically vibrated tool.
vibrated tool, and the dash curve means the corresponding tool velo-
city. The effective calculations start at the position S where the tool
begins to touch the abrasive particle. Therefore, the tool, abrasive, and
workpiece are aligned vertically with no spaces between any two parts
of them in the models. The tool velocity v0 at the position S is the initial
condition of the simulation model, which is called initial velocity.
Fig. 5 shows the velocity conditions of the tool tip. The solid curve is
the ideal condition given in the experiments: the tool tip vibrates si-
nusoidally with a frequency of 61 kHz and the total amplitude of 4 μm.
Contrastingly, the dash curve is the simplified condition for the calcu-
lation. It is assumed that the velocity variation keeps linear in the whole
calculation, which can shorten the simulation time. The tool velocity
condition was applied to nodes on the top surface of the tool and the
initial velocity condition (v = v0) was added to the entire tool block.
Two cycles of loading boundary conditions were applied in the simu-
lation. The initial velocity v0 is 0.75 m/s and 0.9 m/s in the first and the
second cycle, respectively. The corresponding penetration of the tool is
approximately equal to 0.94 μm and 1.35 μm, respectively. We can
investigate the cracking behavior of fractured abrasives and workpieces
through the second cycle of calculation.
2.4. Fracture of workpiece and abrasive particle
The results of material status with the increase of calculation time
for SiC and Al2O3 particles are shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. Red
elements indicate failure state, which visually shows the cracking
process. Fractures occurred in both abrasive particle and workpiece for
all cases. In spherical particle, the crack gradually propagated inside,
while for the cubical ones, sharp corners crushed quickly. In addition,
in the workpiece side, crack growth is faster and severer for SiC
Fig. 4. Schematic of tool vibration in USM.
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 6. Results of material status with SiC abrasive particles: (a) spherical particle, (b) cubical particle (the vertex contact), (c) cubical particle (the edge contact).
compared to Al2O3 particles. Propagation of high pressure induced
median/radial and lateral cracks can be well demonstrated with a
spherical SiC particle. The second loading cycle starts after 5 μs, cracks
did not obviously extend in depth direction for all cases, but extend in
width direction, which is important for material removal. A large crack
was also found in the spherical SiC particle, and the particle split into
two fragments finally.
Obviously, harder SiC particles resist fracture better than Al2O3
particles. Thus, high pressure would be applied on the workpiece when
using SiC abrasive particles and induce large cracks. Additionally, stress
concentration occurs at the sharp corner of the particle in contact with
the tool and the workpiece, so cubical particles were crushed rapidly
than the spherical ones. Conversely, the crack size in the workpiece was
decreased. Generally, larger crack may lead to larger chip removal and
improve the material removal. Therefore, the simulation results imply
that using harder particles possessing spherical shapes may increase the
material removal efficiency.
2.5. Penetration of the abrasive into the tool
Plastic strains on SS304 tools after hammering SiC and Al2O3
abrasive particles are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively. The results
show that the abrasive particle not only indented into the workpiece,
but also penetrated into the tool during the hammering. As the SiC
particle is hard and not easily broken, the penetration into the tool is
large for both spherical and cubical abrasives, inducing large plastic
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
deformation. The deformation may moderate the pressure applied on
the abrasive particle, and accordingly slow the fractures of the abrasive
particle. When the penetration of the abrasive particle into the tool is
large, the indentation of the particle into the workpiece will be small
without regarding fractures of the abrasive particle. This may suppress
the crack growth in the substrate and a reduction of subsurface cracks
in workpieces can be expected. In respect to cubical Al2O3 abrasive
particles, the tool deformation is extremely small because the material
is not hard enough to penetrate into the tool deep and the corners of the
particle in contact with the tool were fractured during the hammering.
In USM, the circulation of effective abrasive particles in the ma-
chining zone is very important, which depends on the machining gap
that is large enough for fresh abrasive renewal. The deformation of tool
materials is considered helpful in slowing down the fractures of abra-
sive particles, which is significant to maintain a large machining gap
and successive material removal of the workpiece. Generally, a smooth
material removal process may decrease the tool wear in USM, because
the work was almost consumed in crack generation of the workpiece,
and erosive effect on the tool is small.
3. Verification of simulation results
3.1. Observation of single particle impact induced cracks
A stationary ultrasonic drilling machine (SD–100 K; Taga Electric
Corporation) was used in this work. This machine has an ultrasonic
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 7. Results of material status with Al2O3 abrasive particles: (a) spherical particle, (b) cubical particle (the vertex contact), (c) cubical particle (the edge contact).
vibration unit which can move continuously in the longitudinal direc-
tion with a stepping resolution of 0.1 μm for hole drilling experiments.
To confirm the impact result by a single abrasive particle as the simu-
lation did, slurry with a very low concentration was employed. The
distance between the tip of the vibrated tool and the workpiece was set
to be comparable to the abrasive particle size. No feed motion was
applied. The experimental conditions are detailed in Table 2. SiC par-
ticles that possess irregular shapes (Fujimi Corporation) and Al2O3
particles of irregular and spherical shapes (Showa Denko Corporation)
were used as the abrasive material in the experiments for comparison.
From the resulted sparse impressions, cracks generated by a single
particle impact were found in all cases, with those being fewer in
number when using irregular Al2O3 particles as shown in Fig. 10. To
study the shapes and sizes of these cracks including potential cracks, the
machined surfaces were etched in a buffered oxide etch solution of a
combination of hydrofluoric acid and ammonium fluoride. The exposed
cracks were closely observed by using a focused ion beam scanning
electron microscope (FIB-SEM: model JIB-4600F; JEOL Corporation) as
shown in Fig. 11. The images on the left side are top views of the
craters, and the right ones are the cross-sectional views after FIB mil-
ling. A median/radial and lateral crack group on the machined surface
generated by an irregular SiC abrasive particle is presented in
Fig. 11(a). The lateral crack creates a large chip on the work surface and
eventually leads to the material removal. This chip removal can also be
confirmed in Fig. 11(d), where the material is partially removed.
Fig. 11(b) and (c) depicts the results by using spherical Al2O3 abrasive
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
particles. Circular craters are confirmed in the center of the impact
sites, and median/radial or the ring crack can be observed at the rim of
the circular crater. The larger circular craters and ring cracks are con-
sidered significant in material removal. For irregular Al2O3 abrasive
particles, the crack size is smaller than those formed by using SiC and
spherical Al2O3 particles. The observation results are consistence with
the simulation results. Both of them suggest that the material removal
rate may be faster when using hard and spherical abrasive particles in
USM.
3.2. Hole drilling experiments with different types of abrasive particles
3.2.1. Machining efficiency
Blind-hole drilling experiments were conducted using the three
types of abrasive particles with stop conditions when either the ma-
chining depth is bigger than 500 μm or the maximum machining force
is larger than 3 N. Abrasive volume of 10 wt.% was employed and the
flow rate of slurry was 50 mL/min. The obtained maximum feed rates
when reaching the stop conditions were used to evaluate the material
removal efficiency of the USM process. The detailed experimental
process and discussion can be found in the former work [14].
The results show that the tool feed rate can be up to 40 μm/s to
complete 500 μm feed depth when using spherical Al2O3 abrasive
particles, while it is 7 μm/s by using SiC abrasive particles. The lowest
value of 3 μm/s was obtained by using irregular Al2O3 abrasive parti-
cles. These results support the view that using harder and spherical
J. Wang et al.
abrasive particles is helpful to increase the material removal efficiency.
By considering the observation results in Section 3.1, even though the
Al2O3 material is not as hard as SiC material, the large circular craters
and ring cracks generated by spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles are
possible to make more material removal than the irregular SiC abrasive
particles.
3.2.2. Crack distribution on machined surfaces
The crack distribution for each case is summarized as shown in
Fig. 12 by observing at least thirty cracks remaining on each machined
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
Fig. 8. Plastic strain on the tool induced by SiC abrasive
particles: (a) spherical particle, (b) cubical particle (vertex
contact), (c) cubical particle (edge contact).
surface after etching. Depths of cracks on the bottom surfaces are less
than 6 μm and larger than those on the wall surfaces for all the three
cases. The cracks remaining on the wall surfaces are considered the
propagations of median/radial cracks and cone cracks into the sur-
rounding material at an angle to the loading axis. These cracks may be
polished by up-down strokes of the tool and thus being smaller than the
ones on the bottom surfaces. The mean depth with a measurement
accuracy of 10 nm when using different abrasive particles was averaged
based on these observations and plotted in Fig. 13. The calculated va-
lues are 1.73, 1.32, and 1.38 μm for bottom surfaces when using SiC,
J. Wang et al.
irregular Al2O3, and spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles, respectively.
The corresponding values for wall surfaces are 1.25, 0.99 and 1.33 μm,
respectively. Using hard and spherical particles induces larger cracks
and verifies the simulation results.
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
Fig. 9. Plastic strain on the tool induced by Al2O3
abrasive particles: (a) spherical particle, (b) cubical
particle (the vertex contact), (c) cubical particle (the
edge contact).
3.2.3. Wear of different types of abrasive particles
To compare the wear of different abrasive particles during micro-
USM, deep holes up to 1300 μm were drilled using the three types of
abrasive particles. For each case, slurry of 20 g in mass with a low
concentration of abrasive particles (5 wt.% mixed with water) was
provided at first and no fresh slurries were added during the USM
J. Wang et al. Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

Table 2
Experimental details for observing cracks generated by a single abrasive particle.

Item condition

Vibration frequency About 61 kHz

Vibration amplitude About 4 μm (peak-to-peak)
Machining time 5s
Work gap size Equal to the mean size of abrasive particles
Tool material 304 stainless steel (⌀ 1 mm)
Abrasive material SiC (irregular shape),
Al2O3 (irregular and spherical shapes)
Abrasive size Mean size: 5–9 μm
Abrasive volume 1 wt.% mixed with water
Workpiece material Glass

machining. The feed rates were set to a low value of 1 μm/s for all cases
to make sure that the circulation of abrasive particles is efficient even in
deep holes. Micrographs of the abrasive particles before machining and
after machining for 500, 1000 and 1300 s were captured to confirm the
change of particle shapes. Fig. 14 shows the results of spherical Al2O3
abrasive particles. Before machining, the particles have smooth round
surfaces as shown in Fig. 14(a). After machining, tiny cracks and frac-
tures initiated on the abrasive particles. It is noted that the particle
surface shows some pimple-like damages as shown in Fig. 14(b) and (c),
which may result from the local temperature increase of the particles
during their impact with tool and workpiece. Except for the compres-
sion pressure induced by the hammering action of larger abrasive
particle, local temperature increase on the abrasive surface and cavi-
tation effect of the slurry may be responsible for the growth of the
damages and facilitate crack extension in abrasive particles. Therefore,
with the increase of machining time, the cracks increased in size and
finally split the abrasive particles into pieces. As shown in the right
picture of Fig. 14(d), the particle is no more spherical and has some
surface irregularities. The big fractures are almost to occur in abrasive
particles with a large diameter because these larger particles acted on
the work surface and the tool first and accordingly they are worn ser-
iously. Fig. 15 shows the results of irregular SiC and Al2O3 abrasive
particles. The fresh abrasive particles possessed sharp corners with
many surface irregularities for both cases. Once the abrasives have been
used, some of these sharp corners are removed and the particles seem to
have fewer surface irregularities. For SiC abrasive particles, the wear of
particles seemed to be slower and smaller. While in the case of irregular
Al2O3 abrasive particles, the particles tend to have few sharp corners
and many blunt surfaces if the machining time is longer.
Ratios of the mean particle sizes to the original mean particle sizes
of different abrasive particles with the increase of machining time are
calculated and summarized in Fig. 16. The results show a slowest de-
crease in particle size for SiC abrasive particles, which means that the
wear of SiC abrasive particles was lower compared to those of both
spherical and irregular Al2O3 abrasive particles. It is because the SiC
material has a high wear resistance than the Al2O3 material due to its
high hardness. The results also show that the particle size ratio of
spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles is almost the same as the SiC abrasive
particles and far larger than that of irregular Al2O3 particles at the start-
up stage, which indicates that the spherical abrasive particles can resist
wear better than irregular ones. However, with the increase of the
machining time, a sudden decrease of the particle ratio occurs for
spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles. When the machining time being
longer, the larger spherical abrasive particles may break into some Fig. 10. Scanning laser microscope photographs of the machined surfaces by using dif-
fragments due to the crack growth. As no fresh slurries were added ferent abrasive particles: (a) irregular SiC particles, (b) spherical Al2O3 particles, (c) ir-
during machining, the number of broken particles would increase and regular Al2O3 particles.

accordingly led to a steep reduction of mean particle size. While for the
irregular abrasive particles, the wear rate becomes lower due to the
reduction of sharp corners over a period of time. The changes of cir-
cularity of different abrasive particles are shown in Fig. 17. The cir-
cularity of spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles decreases with the
machining time, while inverse results were obtained for irregular SiC
and Al2O3 abrasive particles. These results also demonstrate that the
spherical particles split into small pieces during machining and lost its
spherical shape, while the irregular particles wore at the sharp corners

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J. Wang et al. Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

Fig. 11. FIB-SEM images of a single crater formed by using different types
of abrasive particles: (a) by using irregular SiC particles, (b) ∼ (c) by using
spherical Al2O3 particles, (d) ∼ (e) by using irregular Al2O3 particles.

and tend to be round with the increase of the machining time.
3.2.4. Tool wear
For evaluating the tool wear, each tool was used for machining five
holes successively with spherical Al2O3, irregular Al2O3, and SiC
abrasive particles, respectively. The cumulative longitudinal tool wear
with the increase of the number of holes is shown in Fig. 18 with an
accuracy of 0.1 μm. Tool wear increases almost linearly with the in-
creased number for all cases, which indicates that the longitudinal tool
wear grows nearly uniform by each hole drilling under the same

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Fig. 13. Mean crack depth when using different abrasive particles.
machining conditions. The results also show a highest longitudinal
wear occurred with SiC abrasive particles, followed by irregular Al2O3
abrasive particles, and it is lowest with spherical Al2O3 abrasive par-
ticles. It has been believed that harder abrasive particles have more
cutting power and would result in more tool wear [31]. In the simu-
lation, larger plastic deformation occurred with SiC abrasive particles,
which is also considered as one of the reasons leading to a big reduction
in tool length. The cross-sectional profiles of the cutting surfaces before
and after machining were measured for each case with SiC, irregular
Al2O3, and spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles as depicted in Figs. 19–21,
respectively. Due to the flow of the abrasive particles in the cir-
cumferential machining gap between the tool and the workpiece, the
lateral wear of the tool occurs and induces tapering of the tool tip for all
three cases. The serious tapering happens when using irregular Al2O3
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
Fig. 12. Crack distribution on the machined surfaces when using
different abrasive particles: (a) SiC abrasive particles, (b) irregular
Al2O3 abrasive particles, (c) spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles.
abrasives as shown in Fig. 20(b). In addition, the corners of the tool tip
exhibited particularly high wear for all cases during machining and
turned to be round. The reason is considered the stress concentration at
these sharp corners. In addition, the abrasive particles are pushed to the
peripheral area in the successive ultrasonic vibrations of the tool and
therefore more impacts would take place in this region. Correspond-
ingly, the wear from the periphery of the tool gets greater. Except for
the longitudinal and lateral wear, obvious wear occurred in the center
of the cutting surface with irregular Al2O3 and resulted in a concave
shape. A slight concavity can also be found on the tool after machining
five holes when using SiC abrasive particles. In the case of spherical
Al2O3, the tool retained a nearly flat surface. All results show that the
wear of cutting surface is lower with hard and spherical abrasive par-
ticles. As described above, the material removal efficiency was greater
with these types of abrasive particles. Therefore, using hard and sphe-
rical abrasive particles is considered helpful in improving the material
removal efficiency and reducing the tool wear in micro-USM simulta-
neously. By considering the simulation results, the penetration of the
abrasive particle into the tool material did not wear the tool, but had a
positive effect in moderating the particle fracture and accordingly re-
tain the material removal. The uniform tool wear at the cutting surface
when using hard SiC abrasive particles and spherical Al2O3 abrasive
particles in this work is considered to be the result of smooth material
removal process. The successive cracking in workpiece reduces the fa-
tigue loading applied on the tool material, and accordingly decreases
the tool wear.
J. Wang et al. Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

Fig. 14. Micrographs of spherical Al2O3 abrasive

particles with the increase of machining time: (a)
before machining, (b) after 500 s, (c) after 1000 s,
(d) after 1300 s.

4. Conclusion
In this work, both SPH simulations and experiments were conducted
to investigate the influences of abrasive material and particle shape on
machining performance in USM. Cracking of substrates and abrasive
particles and tool deformation were concerned. It is noticed that slurry
characteristics have a large effect on machining process. The wear of
abrasive particles is a significant topic for completely understanding the
material removal mechanism. Major conclusions can be summarized as
follows:

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J. Wang et al.
(1) The material removal in micro-USM is mainly determined by the
crack generation of workpieces and the wear of abrasive particles.
The former one leads to chip removal of materials and directly af-
fects the material removal efficiency. The latter one has a close
relation to the former one and indirectly influences the material
removal efficiency. In addition, in the material removal process, the
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Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387
Fig. 15. Micrographs of irregular SiC (left) and
Al2O3 (right) abrasive particles with the increase of
machining time: (a) before machining, (b) after
500 s, (c) after 1000 s, (d) after 1300 s.
tool wear has a large effect.
(2) Larger crack generation in substrates and smaller wear of abrasive
particles are helpful to maintain the machining gap and improve
the machining efficiency. According to the simulation and experi-
mental results, using harder and spherical particles may cause
larger chip removal and suppress the wear of abrasive particles,
J. Wang et al. Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

Fig. 16. Ratios of current mean particle size to original particle size of different abrasive
particles.

Fig. 19. Cross-sectional profiles of the 304 stainless steel tool tip after holes drilling ex-
periments with SiC abrasive particles: (a) before machining, (b) after five holes.

Fig. 17. Change of circularity of different abrasive particles with the increase of ma-
chining time.

Fig. 20. Cross-sectional profiles of the 304 stainless steel tool tip after holes drilling ex-
periments with irregular Al2O3 abrasive particles: (a) before machining, (b) after five
holes.

Fig. 18. Longitudinal tool wear during holes drilling experiments when using different
abrasive particles.

which increases the material removal efficiency.

(3) If cracks propagated seriously in the substrate, they may be not
removed totally during machining process and retain on the ma-
chined surfaces ultimately. Therefore, the material removal effi-
ciency is maximized with a compromise in surface quality. By
choosing an appropriate machining condition, this compromise is
expected to be minimized.
(4) The surfaces of spherical particles show some pimple-like damages
after machining, which may result from the compression pressure,
local temperature increase on the particle surface and cavitation
effect of the slurry.
(5) In this work, the best machining result was obtained by choosing
Fig. 21. Cross-sectional profiles of the 304 stainless steel tool tip after holes drilling ex-
spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles. The tool feed rate can be highest periments with spherical Al2O3 abrasive particles: (a) before machining, (b) after five
at 40 μm/s, the cracks are less than 5 μm and 4 μm in depth on holes.
bottom and wall surfaces after etching, and the tool wear is the
lowest.

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J. Wang et al. Precision Engineering 51 (2018) 373–387

Acknowledgements hydrodynamics simulation and experimental study of ultrasonic machining. Proc

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of Taga Electric [15]
Corporation in Japan with respect to the manufacture of USM tool, and
[16]
Fujimi Corporation and Showa Denko Corporation in Japan for the
provision of abrasives used in the experiments. The first author would
like to thank the financial support of “the Fundamental Research Funds [17]
for the Central Universities”, China [Grant no. 3132017005]. [18]
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