Development of Design and Manufacturing Support Tool for Optimization of Ultrasonic Machining (USM) and Rotary USM

Ultrasonic machining (USM) is a mechanical material removal process used to erode holes and cavities in hard or brittle work pieces by using shaped tools, high-frequency and an abrasive slurry. This paper addresses the concept and development of an expert system (ES) for hard and brittle material, such as glass, quartz, diamond, carbides, semi conducting materials, ceramic and graphite which can be manufactured with ultrasonic machine or rotary ultrasonic machining. The expert system is developed based on object oriented technique. The system links with a feature based CAD system in order to extract design data. The expert system is linked with databases. The machining cycle time, cost, penetration rate and productivity, of each selected design feature are estimated. The system provides useful information such as machining cycle time and cost, penetration rate and efficiency of machining of the selected design feature for product designers and manufacturing engineers to select optimum machining parameters. Also the expert system compares ultrasonic machining (USM) and rotary ultrasonic machining (RUSM) for the same design feature in concurrent engineering environment.