Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis aims to establish a sound scientific methodology for the effective and efficient polishing of thermally stable PCD composites (consisting of diamond and SiC) for cutting tools applications. The surface roughness of industrial PCD cutting tools, 0.06 μm Ra is currently achieved by mechanical polishing which is time consuming and costly because it takes about three hours to polish a 12.7 mm diameter PCD surface. An alternative technique, dynamic friction polishing (DFP) which utilizes the thermo-chemical reactions between the PCD surfaces and a catalytic metal disk rotating at high peripheral speed has been comprehensively investigated for highly efficient abrasive-free polishing of PCD composites. A special polishing machine was designed and manufactured in-house to carry out the DFP of PCD composites efficiently and in a controllable manner according to the requirements of DFP. The PCD polishing process and material removal mechanism were comprehensively investigated by using a combination of the various characterization techniques: optical microscopy, SEM and EDX, AFM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy, TEM, STEM and EELS, etc. A theoretical model was developed to predict temperature rise at the interface of the polishing disk and PCD asperities. On-line temperature measurements were carried out to determine subsurface temperatures for a range of polishing conditions. A method was also developed to extrapolate these measured temperatures to the PCD surface, which were compared with the theoretical results. The material removal mechanism was further explored by theoretical study of the interface reactions under these polishing conditions, with particular emphasis on temperature, contact with catalytic metals and polishing environment. Based on the experimental results and theoretical analyses, the material removal mechanism of dynamic friction polishing can be described as follows: conversion of diamond into non-diamond carbon takes place due to the frictional heating and the interaction of diamond with catalyst metal disk; then a part of the transformed material is detached from the PCD surface as it is weakly bonded; another part of the non-diamond carbon oxidizes and escapes as CO or CO2 gas and the rest diffuses into the metal disk. Meanwhile, another component of PCD, SiC also chemically reacted and transformed to amorphous silicon oxide/carbide, which is then mechanically or chemically removed. Finally an attempt was made to optimise the polishing process by investigating the effect of polishing parameters on material removal rate, surface characteristics and cracking /fracture of PCD to achieve the surface roughness requirement. It was found that combining dynamic friction polishing and mechanical abrasive polishing, a very high polishing rate and good quality surface could be obtained. The final surface roughness could be reduced to 50 nm Ra for two types of PCD specimens considered from pre-polishing value of 0.7 or 1.5 μm Ra. The polishing time required was 18 minutes, a ten fold reduction compared with the mechanical abrasive polishing currently used in industry.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/242887 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | CHEN, Yiqing |
| Publisher | University of Sydney., School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | The author retains copyright of this thesis., http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/copyright.html |
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