Title from title page (viewed April 28, 2010) Graduate School of Engineering. Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Includes bibliographical references.

There are two important omissions in the literature on bore polishing, firstly there is no evidence of the successful development of a reliable tribo test device to simulate bore polishing and secondly, the mechanism of bore polishing has not been fully defined. The aims of this study were: 1. To establish the principal characteristics of bore polishing In engines. 2. To produce bore polishing in the laboratory. 3. Differentiate between two reference oils in a laboratory tribo test. 4. To understand the mechanism of bore polishing. The principal characteristics of bore polishing have been identified by the examination of Tornado cylinder bores from an engine test. The graphite structure is visible on the surface which has a surface finish of less then 0.125 micro-m in C.L.A. value. The components used in these tests were a grey cast iron piston ring running on a grey cast iron cylinder bore typically used in commercial engines. A reciprocating tribo test was used to distinguish between the two reference oils. The result showed higher friction, wear and a smoother surface with the oil causing bore polishing compared to the other oil which did not produce bore polishing. Adding carbon, taken from the wall of a piston used in an engine test, to the lubricant in the laboratory tribo test produced a phenomenon resembling bore polishing. Comparisons have been made between the tribo test results and service engines and a good correlation has been obtained. Several analytical techniques have been used and the knowledge of bore polishing has been advanced. In particular, it is suggested that a combination of two processes, one mechanical and the other chemical, are associated with bore polishing. Four wear mechanisms were identified during this investigation; abrasion, delamination, corrosion and adhesion.

In this thesis, several machining strategies to remove axially symmetric form error with small wavelength by Hydrodynamic Polishing process (abbreviated as HDP) were proposed. Three strategies were proposed progressively in the study so as to remove axially symmetric form error with small wavelength. The first and second tactics were based on a basic algorithm, say, directly solving of a set of simultaneous equations. In the first strategy, a set of simultaneous equations was constructed by relating the total machining action of each dwelling point to the corresponding initial error. Subsequently, a set of dwelling time was obtained by directly solving the simultaneous equations. The second strategy evaluates solutions in a similar way like the first one but more restrictions were concerned in solution evaluation. The third strategy is an optimal based method. A set of dwelling time was obtained by minimizing an objective function with given constraints. A series of computer simulations were conducted to estimate the residual error and examine the validity of the strategies. From the computer simulation, the first and second strategies were confronted with negative-time problem, so that merely limited improving of form precision was obtained. The proposed optimal strategy was shown to have high potential for improving the machining precision by the HDP process. Based on the proposed strategies, a better form precision of the work surface with small wavelength can be obtained.

QC 351 A7 no. 03 / The problems connected with the utilization of large high -resolution telescopes are concentrated into two principal areas. The first concerns the physical properties of the mirror disc; the second involves the pro- cessing of the mirror in the optical shop. This technical report concerns, 1) the design of a new type of opti- cal polisher, one with a stationary mirror platform, and, 2) the casting of large discs made up of a new type of glass. This new glass, designated type RZ by Owens -Illinois, has a zero coefficient of thermal expansion at 25° Centigrade. A proposal for research in these two areas has already been made. This research has been supported, in part, under Contract ONR -2173- (12) by the Advanced Research Projects Agency and administered by the Office of Naval Research.

Orientador: Eduardo Carlos Bianchi / Banca: Gilberto de Magalhães Bento Gonçalves / Banca: Luciana Montanari / Resumo: Uma técnica utilizada para substituir o método de lubri-refrigeração convencional é a mínima quantidade de lubrificante (MQL). Este método utiliza de uma mistura de óleo e ar à elevada pressão, reduzindo a quantidade de fluído de corte necessário para a usinagem. Entretanto, em diversos estudos feitos na área de retificação com MQL, nota-se que há a necessidade de aperfeiçoamento dessa técnica com relação à limpeza da zona de corte do rebolo. Devido à dificuldade do baixo fluxo de fluído, em remover os resíduos superficiais acumulados, cavados aderem à superfície da ferramenta abrasiva, preenchendo os poros do rebolo e prejudicando o processo. Sendo assim este trabalho busca promover uma técnica de limpeza para o rebolo do tipo CBN, na retificação cilíndrica de aço ABNT4340 temperado e revenido, com a utilização de MQL. Através de um dispositivo, foi colocado em contato na superfície periférica do rebolo, bastões retangulares compostos dos materiais: Teflon, Óxido de alumínio e Carbeto de silício. As variáveis de saída do processo analisadas foram o comportamento da força tangencial de corte, rugosidade, emissão acústica, relação G (volume de material removido/volume do rebolo desgastado), fotos em microscópio eletrônico de varredura, microdureza e circularidade. O método MQL com o dispositivo, foi comparado com as seguintes condições de lubri-refrigeração: Convencional; MQL sem limpeza com local de ar. Com base nos resultados obtidos, o método de limpeza utilizando o dispositivo juntamente com o bastão de carbeto de silicone, comprovou em algumas condições a obtenção de melhores resultados e ausência de danos térmicos, se comparado aos outros métodos / Abstract: A technique used to replace the method of conventional lubrification and cooling is the minimum quantity lubricant (MQL). This method uses a mixture of oil and air to the high pressure, reducing the amount of fluid required for machining. However, in various studies in the field of grinding with MQL, it is noted that there is a need for improvement of this techique with respect to cleaning the cutting zone of the wheel. Due to the difficulty of low fluid flow, to remove the accumulated surface residue, chips adhere to the surface of the abrasive tool, filling the pores of the wheel and impairing the process. Thus, this work seeks to promote a clening technique for the type CBN wheel, the grinding cylindrical AISI 4340 steel hardened and tempered, with the use of MQL. Through a device was placed in contact on the peripheral surface of the grinding wheel, rectangular rods compounds materials: Teflon, aluminum oxide and silicon carbide. The output variables of the process were analyzed the behavior of the tangential cutting force, surface roughness, acoustic emission, G ratio (volume of material removed/volume of wheel worn), in photos scanning electron microscope, hardness and roundness. The method MQL with the device was compared with the followin conditions of lubrication and cooling: Conventional; MQL without cleaning; MQL and cleaning air nozzle. Based on the results obtained, the cleaning method using the device with the bat silicon carbide, proved in some conditions to obtain better results and no thermal damage, compared to other methods / Mestre

Production of micro-scale components is an important emergent field. One underdeveloped area is the production of micro-scale 3D surfaces, which has important applications in micro-optics and fibre optic sensors. One particular application is the production of micro-lenses. With scales of less than 200 ??m these lenses can improve light coupling efficiencies in micro-optic systems. However, current lens production techniques have limitations in accuracy and versatility. Creating these surfaces through mechanical micro-grinding has the potential to improve the precision and variety of profiles that can be produced, thus improving transmission efficiencies and leading to new applications. This work presents a novel micro-grinding method for the production of microscale asymmetric, symmetric and axisymmetric curved components from brittle materials such as glasses. A specialised micro-grinding machine and machining system has been designed, constructed and successfully tested and is presented here. This system is capable of producing complex profiles directly on the tips of optical fibre workpieces. A five degree of freedom centring system is presented that can align and rotate these workpieces about a precision axis, enabling axisymmetric grinding. A machine vision system, utilising a microscope lens system and sub-pixel localisation techniques, is used to provide feedback for the process, image processing techniques are presented which are shown to have a sensing resolution of 300 nm. Using these systems, workpieces are centred to within 500 nm. Tools are mounted on nanometre precise motion stages and motion and infeed are controlled. Tooling configurations with flat and tangential grinding surfaces are presented along with control and path generation algorithms. The capabilities and shortcomings of each are presented along with methods to predict appropriate feed rates based on experimental data. Both asymmetric and axisymmetric flat and curved micro-profiles have been produced on the tips of optical fibres using this system. These are presented and analysed and show that the system, as described, is capable of producing high quality micro-scale components with submicron dimensional accuracy and nanometric surface quality. The advantages of this technique are compared with other processes and discussed. Further development of the system and technique are also considered.

<p>Today, manual polishing is the most common method to improve the surface finish of mould and dies for e.g. plastic injection moulding, although it is a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Therefore, automated robots are being developed in order to speed up and secure the final result of this important final process.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to find out some clues about the influence of different parameters for the polishing of a steel grade called Mirrax ESR (Uddeholm Tooling AB) using a Design of Experiment. The report starts with a brief description of mechanical polishing (the techniques and polishing mechanisms) and ends up with the optimization of the polishing procedure with a polishing machine, the Strecon RAP-200 made by Strecon A/S.</p><p>Even if all the runs of the Design of Experiments couldn’t be carried out, the surfaces studied revealed some information about the importance of the previous process (turning marks not removed) and about the link between the aspect of the surfaces and the roughness parameters.</p>

The Chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process is now widely employed in the ultralarge scale integration chip fabrication. Due to the continuous advances in semiconductor fabrication technology and decreasing sub-micron feature size, the characterization of erosion, which affects circuit performance and manufacturing throughput, has been an important issue in Cu CMP. In this paper, the erosion in Cu CMP is divided into two levels. The wafer-level and die-level erosion models were developed based on the material removal rates and the geometry of incoming wafers to the Cu CMP process, including the Cu interconnect area fraction, linewidth and Cu deposition thickness. Experiments were conducted to obtain the selectivity values between the Cu, barrier layer and dielectric, and the values of within-wafer material removal rate ratio, β, for the validation of the new erosion model. It was compared with the existing models and was found to agree better with the experimental data. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Long the dominant method of wafer planarization in the integrated circuit (IC) industry, chemical-mechanical polishing is starting to play an important role in microelectromechnical systems (MEMS). We present an experiment to characterize a polysilicon CMP process with the specific goal of examining MEMS sized test structures. We utilize previously discussed models and examine whether the same assumptions from IC CMP can be made for MEMS CMP. We find that CMP at the MEMS scale is not just pattern density dependent, but also partly dependent on feature size. Also, we find that new layout designs relevant to MEMS can negatively impact how well existing CMP models simulate polishing, motivating the need for further model development. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

A formidable challenge in the present multi-step Cu CMP process, employed in the ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) technology, is the control of wafer surface non-uniformity, which primarily is due to dielectric erosion and Cu dishing. In contrast with the earlier experimental and semi-theoretical investigations, a systematic way of characterizing and modeling dielectric erosion in both single- and multi-step Cu CMP processes is presented in this paper. Wafer- and die-level erosion are defined, and the plausible causes of erosion at each level are identified in terms of several geometric and physical parameters. Experimental and analytical means of determining the model parameters are also outlined. The local pressure distribution is estimated at each polishing stage based on the evolving pattern geometry and pad deformation. The single-step model is adapted for the multi-step polishing process, with multiple sets of slurry selectivities, applied pressure, and relative velocity in each step. Finally, the effect of slurry-switching point on erosion was investigated for minimizing dielectric erosion in the multi-step Cu CMP. Based on the developed multi-step erosion model, the physical significance of each model parameter on dielectric erosion is determined, and the optimal polishing practices for minimizing erosion in both multi-step and single-step polishing are suggested. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)