• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.38-43
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• 2007

This paper describes ultrasonically assisted grinding used to obtain a glossy surface quickly and precisely. High-quality surfaces are required for plastic injection molding dies used in the production of plastic parts such as dials for cellular phones. Traditionally, in order to finish the dies, manual polishing by a skilled worker has been required after the machining processes, such as electro discharge machining (EDM), which leaves an affected layer, and milling, which leaves tooling marks. However, manual polishing causes detrimental geometrical deviations of the die and consumes several days to finish a die surface. Therefore, a machining process for finishing dies without manual polishing to improve the surface roughness and form accuracy would be extremely valuable. In this study, a 3D positioning machine equipped with an ultrasonic spindle was used to conduct grinding experiments. An electroplated diamond tool was used for these experiments. Generally, diamond tools cannot grind steel because of excessive wear as a result of carbon atoms diffusing into bulk steel and chips. However, ultrasonically assisted grinding can achieve a fine surface (roughness Rz of $0.4{\mu}m$) on die steel without severe tool wear. The final aim of this study is to realize mirror surface grinding for injection molding dies without manual polishing. To do this, it is necessary to fabricate an electroplated diamond tool with high form accuracy and low run-out. This paper describes a tool-making method for high precision grinding and the grinding performance of a self-electroplated tool. The ground surface textures, tool performance and tool life were investigated A ground surface roughness Rz of 0.14 um was achieved Our results show that the spindle speed, feed rate and cross feed affected the surface texture. One tool could finish $5000mm^2$ of die steel surface without any deterioration of the ground surface roughness.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.81.2-81.2
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• 2012

To fabricate a metal mold for injection molding, hot-embossing and imprinting process, mechanical machining, electro discharge machining (EDM), electrochemical machining (ECM), laser process and wet etching ($FeCl_3$ process) have been widely used. However it is hard to get precise structure with these processes. Electrochemical etching has been also employed to fabricate a micro structure in metal mold. A through mask electrochemical micro machining (TMEMM) is one of the electrochemical etching processes which can obtain finely precise structure. In this process, many parameters such as current density, process time, temperature of electrolyte and distance between electrodes should be controlled. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the result because it has low reliability and reproducibility. To improve it, we investigated this process numerically and experimentally. To search the relation between processing parameters and the results, we used finite element simulation and the commercial finite element method (FEM) software ANSYS was used to analyze the electric field. In this study, it was supposed that the anodic dissolution process is predicted depending on the current density which is one of major parameters with finite element method. In experiment, we used stainless steel (SS304) substrate with various sized square and circular array patterns as an anode and copper (Cu) plate as a cathode. A mixture of $H_2SO_4$, $H_3PO_4$ and DIW was used as an electrolyte. After electrochemical etching process, we compared the results of experiment and simulation. As a result, we got the current distribution in the electrolyte and line profile of current density of the patterns from simulation. And etching profile and surface morphologies were characterized by 3D-profiler(${\mu}$-surf, Nanofocus, Germany) and FE-SEM(S-4800, Hitachi, Japan) measurement. From comparison of these data, it was confirmed that current distribution and line profile of the patterns from simulation are similar to surface morphology and etching profile of the sample from the process, respectively. Then we concluded that current density is more concentrated at the edge of pattern and the depth of etched area is proportional to current density.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.426-432
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• 1999

A plus-point eddy current test(ECT) probe was developed to examine the defects on the welds of pumps, valves, and pipings which are the major components of the electric power plants, non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques for detecting and sizing the flaws were studied adapting this probe. Differential plus-point ECT probe is consists of two "I"-type coils crossed each other and has an advantage having a small influence on the sensitivity by lift-off variation to the conventional types of probe. The specimens with crack-like electro discharge machining(EDM) notches on the weld of type 304 stainless-steel were fabricated in order to evaluate the plus-point ECT probe response to the flaws. NDE techniques to detect and size the flaws and estimate the flaw type were established with this specimens.