Micromanufacturing: A review—Part I

Abstract

Micromanufacturing processes are expanding in their length and breadth as long as the related research and development (R&D) activities and applications are concerned. Products are getting miniaturized and their performance efficiency is getting enhanced by the addition of micro/nanofeatures and devices. In the set of these two articles (Part I and Part II), an attempt has been made to review the latest R&D activities of the selected micromanufacturing processes. This article (Part I) deals with a review of the literature related to attrition (subtractive, or machining and finishing) processes (both types—traditional and advanced) including microturning, micromilling, microdrilling, abrasive jet micromachining, laser beam micromachining, electrochemical micromachining, magnetorheological finishing, abrasive flow finishing, magnetic abrasive finishing, ion beam micromachining and so on. Apart from the subtractive processes, an overview of the X-ray lithography has also been presented. An attempt has been made to report some applications to help the readers to evolve more new applications of these processes. At the end of different sections/subsections, some research areas have been identified, which would hopefully fill the gaps between the theoretical analysis, experimental work and applications.

Optimization of Nozzle Inclination and Process Parameters in Air-Shielding Electrochemical Micromachining

“…The measured data of aspect ratio and roughness for the micro pits from Figure 7a-p are listed in Table 3 (No. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. It can be seen that the micro pit size and surface morphology processed by AS-EMM vary greatly under different experimental parameters.…”

“…In ECM, the material was removed by electrolysis. Compared with other microstructure Micromachines 2019, 10, 846 2 of 12 machining methods, ECM has advantages of no mechanical or thermal stress, no burrs or distortion of features [10], high surface quality, and high material removal rate (MRR), regardless of material hardness. It has many applications, one of which is electrochemical jet machining (EJM).…”

Onset of abrasive wear of boundaries in concentrated suspension flow

“…Because of its ability to machine interior and curved surfaces, it is considered as a convenient surface finishing process. Over the last three decades, the AbFM method has been studied experimentally [2] and theoretically [3][4][5], as has been recently reviewed [6,7]. Recently, similar techniques such as magnetorheological abrasive honing (MRAH) [8] and magnetorheological finishing (MRF) [9] have been studied.…”

Ablation study of laser micromachining process with molecular dynamics simulation

“…2 Multiple operations have been successfully realized through laser micromachining and Section of Manufacturing Technology, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece short-pulsed lasers in particular, even by using simple equipment and applying plain manufacturing methods. It is thus proved that the constantly evolving technology may lead to nanometre precision in micromachining processes.…”