Development of Self-Actuated Ultrasonic Grinding Wheel Compatible with General-Purpose Spindles

This study aims to develop a self-;actuated ultrasonic grinding wheel that enables ultrasonic vibration grinding to be performed on general-;purpose machine tools without the need for dedicated machines. The developed grinding wheel is designed to incorporate a piezoelectric actuator for vibration excitation, a leaf-;spring structure to prevent the transmission of ultrasonic vibration to the wheel mounting hole in the flange, and an integrated power supply system. As a result, the following achievements were obtained: (1) The basic structure of a self-;actuated ultrasonic grinding wheel was investigated, and design guidelines for each constituent element were established. (2) A prototype ultrasonic grinding wheel was fabricated, which exhibits axisymmetric radial vibration at a frequency of 42.7 kHz with an amplitude of 3.5 µm. (3) Grinding experiments on single-;crystal SiC wafers were conducted using the prototype wheel, demonstrating improvements in both surface quality and grinding efficiency, thereby clarifying the effectiveness of the developed self-;actuated ultrasonic grinding wheel. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the widespread adoption of ultrasonic vibration grinding and to the high-;efficiency, high-;precision grinding of hard and brittle materials.