Mechanism Analysis and Process Optimization of Micro-Hole Lapping of Hard and Brittle Materials

This research investigates a new micro-hole lapping method by use of the stable zirconia for the material remove model, lapping mechanism and the optimal process parameters. It is assumed that the material is removed in brittle fractures and that the impact force and friction force of a reciprocated piano wire are considered as the major mechanism for removing material. An empirical material remove model including parameters of abrasive size, abrasive concentration of slurry, taper angle of wire, wire tension and pH-value of slurry is derived. The design of experiment and the regression analysis are conducted to formulate the empirical correlation between the significant parameters and the material remove rate. The results show that both the empirical and theoretical models have good agreements with the experimental results and that the material remove rate increases with the abrasive size, wire tension and pH-value of slurry while the material remove rate decreases as the concentration of abrasive or taper angle of wire increases. The experiment result shows that the significant parameters affecting the material remove rate are abrasive size, wire tension and that pH-value of slurry and concentration of abrasive and taper angle of wire are insignificant.