A Study on Erosion Performance of Monocrystalline Silicon in Ultrasonic Vibration-Assisted Abrasive Water Jet Machining

Abstract

Ultrasonic vibration-assisted machining (UVAM) is an effective and promising technology for processing hard and brittle materials, it has been explored in many experimental and theoretical investigations. In this paper, a study on the erosion performance of monocrystalline silicon with UVAM is presented and discussed. In the erosion experiments, monocrystalline silicon wafers were eroded by the abrasive water jet machine assisted with an ultrasonic vibration system. A contrast experiment was carried out firstly to study the influence of the ultrasonic vibration, and then an orthogonal experiment investigation was carried out to understand the effect of process variables (the abrasive particle diameter, jet impact angle, standoff distance, abrasive mass flow rate and ultrasonic vibration power) on the depth of erosion and material removal rate (MRR). The experimental results revealed that ultrasonic vibration-assisted abrasive water jet erosion (UVA-AWJE) can obviously improve the depth of the erosion and MRR compared with those in traditional AWJE and the variation trends of the effect of the abrasive particle diameter, jet impact angle, standoff distance and abrasive mass flow rate on the erosion performance in UVA-AWJE are very similar to those effect in the traditional AWJ machining.

A review on the erosion mechanisms in abrasive waterjet micromachining of brittle materials

“…There have been numerous reported works where ultrasonic vibration assistance is employed to improve the machining process. Vibration has also been used to assist microjet machining process [50,51] although the mechanisms beyond which the vibration affects the machining process and performance may be different from those in traditional machining where solid tools are used [52,53]. In a recent study at the authors' laboratory, ultrasonic vibration of 20 kHz was applied perpendicularly on the target material surface with the amplitude in an order of ten micrometres.…”