Ultraprecision Lathe

Yoga Febrian Pratama - B6TB1712

Purpose
The workshop aims to study the components which comprises an ultraprecision machining device
and the basic operations required to conduct ultraprecision machining on the work material. In
addition, by performing mirror-nishing on a disc surface, ultraprecision was experienced.

Apparatus
In the workshop, the ultraprecision lathe machine, manufactered by Toshiba Machine Co. Ltd.
of the series ULG-100A was used. Figure 1 depicts the machine as seen in the manufacturer
website. For the cutter, a single-crystal diamond cutting tool was used. To ensure that the

Figure 1: The ultraprecision lathe machine used in the workshop.

workpiece is xed in the center of the spindle, a displacement measurement scale was used. After
the machining was done, the surface roughness was calculated. To calculate it, a roughness
measuring machine (Mitutoyo SJ-410) was used. In addition, the surface was seen under the
microscope (Mitutoyo MF-UA1010C) to see the surface in a bigger magnication such that the
surface can be clearly seen. The material used is Duralumin, with the following main composition:
4% Cu, 0.2-0.8% Si, 0.4-0.8% Mg, 0.4-1.0 Mn, and the rest is Aluminum. Small traces of Fe and
Si is also available and very little amount of Zn is present.

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Workshop Procedure
A brieng regarding the basics of ultraprecision machining was conducted. Before machining,
the theoretical value of the surface roughness of the workpiece material under dierent feed rate,
from 30 to 5 with steps of 5, was calculated. Then, the workpiece was xed on the spindle. In
order to ensure it is xed using vacuum exactly at the middle of the spindle, the displacement
measurement scale was used. The way to use it is to simply put the pointing edge on the top
of the workpiece and the workpiece will be rotated. When the surface is not in the center, the
height dierence can be detected by the scale. After it is xed, the cover was put down for safety.
The following code was entered into the ultraprecision lathing machine.

As seen from the code, cutting is done in three dierent feed rate. The rst one being 100
[mm/min], then 50 [mm/min], continued by the calculated feed rate (30 to 5 [mm/min], one feed
rate for each material). The feed rate is altered by changing line 16. The origin of the x and
z-coordinate was then set to the center of the spindle.

Displacing the z-axis of the spindle into about 3 mm from the center, the workpiece rotated
clockwise and the spindle's x-axis was adjusted so that the cutting tool touches exactly the
surface of the workpiece. The code was then executed and the lathe process was done to the
workpiece. The cut was done three times, a rough cut (0.02 mm cutting depth), a smooth cut
(0.015 mm) and a ne cut (0.01 mm). The surface roughness was checked after the cutting and
the surface was magnied under the microscope to see the characteristics of the surface.

Workshop Results
In the workshop, the basic knowledge and processes to grind the surface of a workpiece using
ultraprecision lathe machines was studied. Dierent feed rate was used to compared the relation-
ship between feed rate and the surface roughness of the wokpiece material. The ultraprecision
lathe was able to produce a shiny-mirror surface with very small surface roughness, up to a cer-
−3
tain limit, which is also why we were not able to produce surface roughness of larger than 10 .
The result of the workshop is shown in Figure 2. Figure 3 depicts the close-up of the surfaced
produced by the lathing machine using a feed rate of about 10 [mm/min].

As seen from Figure 3, depending on the feed rate, ultraprecision lathe machining is able to
produce really smooth surface on a workpiece material. In this case, the higher the feed rate,

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Figure 2: The calculated surface roughness of the workpiece material under dierent feed rates.

Figure 3: The surface of the ultraprecision lathe machined workpiece with 10 [mm/min] feed
rate.

the surface roughness of the workpiece material will be higher. The reason to this is the chip
production mechanism itself. With higher feed rate, velocity of chip increases, such that a shorter
time is given for the chip to be in contact with the new surface, leading less chip to be left behind
on the new surface.

From the machined product we were able to clearly see the advantage of ultraprecision lathing.
The main one being the ability to cut the material at a very precise scale, up to a certain point,
depending on the machine specication. Owing to the single-diamond cutting tool, a mirror
nish was able to be done due to its hardness being far higher than the workpiece.

In addition to this, the value of both theoretical and experimental surface roughnes were com-
pared. The result is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1: Comparison of theoretical surface roughness and the measured surface roughness values.

Feed Speed F (mm/min) Theoretical Rmax (µm) Measured Rmax

30 0.1 0.128
25 6.94 × 10−2 0.079
20 4.44 × 10−2 0.057
15 2.5 × 10−2 0.050
10 1.11 × 10−2 0.041
5 2.78 × 10−3 0.035

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Assignments
The eect of using a cutting tool with bigger radius
Referring to the theoretical formula for surface roughness:

f2
Rmax = (1)
8R
It can be predicted that by using a cutting tool with bigger radius, under the same given con-
dition, will decrease surface roughness, due to the reciprocal relation surface roughness holds
with tool radius. In practical, under the same condition, especially cutting depth, using a bigger
radius widens the curved cut surface. During cutting, two cuts will intersect forming peaks and
lows. When the same feed rate and cutting depth is used, the size of the peaks becomes smaller as
well, decreasiing the deviation of the surface. This manifests as lower surface roughness.

The error factors in the machining

There are various error factors that can be taken into consideration. They can be divided into
three forms or error, machine-factor error, tool-factor error, and workpiece-error factor. Each
has dierent mechanism in aecting the machined workpiece surface roughness.

In the case of factors caused by the machine, one possible cause is the vibration from the machine.
Despite being carefully selected, parts of the machine that was used in the workshop may induce
vibrations. These vibrations might emerge due to loose parts on the machine or the machine itself
being not rigid enough. The vibration caues the cutting tool to cut the workpiece on another
axis. The cuts in these non-targeted axis causes deviation of the surface from the normal surface,
which increases the surface roughness.

In the case of the tool, a possible cause is tool wear. Tool wear is basically the gradual failure
of a tool due to regular usage. One of the cause of tool wear is contact with chips. The contact
erodes the rake face and when the wear had build up, it might cause tool failure. One result
of this contact is a BUE (built-up edge) or also known as construction edge. As materials from
the machined workpiece builds up on the tool, the cutting pressure is lowered. When pressure is
lowered, the cutting force would decrease as well. This causes the tool to lack the needed force
to perform the needed cut.

Another error factor is caused by the workpiece, which could be due to the dierence in the
crystal structure and impurities. Pure aluminum and aluminum alloy has dierent crystal struc-
tures, which causes them to have dierent yield stresses, and the same case is also valid due to
impurities. When an alloy is cut, due to the mixing, some cut surfaces are not the same metals,
this causes this metals to be cut dierently, which increases surface roughness. For example,
copper and aluminum are both soft metals, with copper being slightly harder. Since it is harder
to cut, using the same cutting condition with aluminum would cause imperfect cuts, causing
higher surface roughness. This was visble on the magnied view of the surface.