Burr Formation in Fly-cutting

Micro-groove is one of the most important features in mechanical, electronic, photonic, and bio-medical components. In recent years, fabircation of micro-grooves became increasingly important with an advancement of product miniaturisation. It is realised that in micro-machining of grooves, the principal problem is the presence of burrs along the feature edges and also the profile inaccuracy affected by the cutting tool-edge defects. However, literature survey shows that not much work has been done in the development of cutting grooves process. Thus, in this study, a fly-cut system developed as an attachment on ultra-precision turning machine is used to explore the problems associated with micro-groove machining. Burr formation mechanism is discussed both theoretically and experimentally. With the further development in the process, micro-grooves that are burrminimized and with mirror finish have been successfully obtained. As an application, the fabrication of prism arrays and standard step heights are demonstrated.