Development of an End-Toothed Disc-Based Quick-Change Fixture for Ultra-Precision Diamond Cutting

Abstract

With its standardized and unified interface, the quick-change fixture is an important part for maintaining high efficiency without compensation of precision in the metal-turning process because it can conveniently realize high-precision repeated clamping and multi-station conversion without complex positioning and adjustment steps. However, the existing quick-change fixture products and related research cannot fully meet the needs of repeatability and applicability raised from ultra-precision, single-point diamond turning with ultra-high accuracy and ultra-small depth of cut. In this paper, we develop a quick-change fixture for ultra-precision diamond turning, in which the end-toothed disc acts as the positioning element. Specifically, the main parameters of two key components of the end-toothed disc and slotted disc spring are calculated analytically to ensure the positioning accuracy of the designed fixture used in the rotation condition, which is further ensured by controlling the machining tolerance of the tooth profile of the end-toothed disc. Additionally, finite element simulations are performed to investigate the static and modal states of the quick-change fixture, which demonstrate a maximum deformation of about 0.9 μm and a minimum natural frequency of 5655.9 Hz for the designed fixture. Two high-precision sensors are used to detect the radial jump and end run-out values after repeated clamping actions, which are employed to verify the repetitive positioning accuracy of the fixture. Subsequent finite-element simulation of the clamping of small-diameter copper bar, as well as the diamond turning experiment, jointly demonstrate that the designed fixture can achieve a precision of 1 μm. Current work provides an effective quick-change fixture to reduce the deformation of a weak-stiffness workpiece caused by clamping deformation in ultra-precision diamond cutting.