A study on the optimal fabrication method for micro-scale gyroscopes using a hybrid process consisting of electric discharge machining,

chemical etching or micro-mechanical milling

For many MEMEs applications, a high quality and geometrically accurate freeform mold is essential. CVD diamond shell for a micro-scale rate integrating gyroscope which is based on a hemispherical wine-glass resonator is one such application and traditional hybrid fabrication processes consisting of EDM, chemical etching or micro-mechanical milling are tested for manufacturing of the above mentioned mold. EDM is said to be an ideal material removal method for hard and brittle substances such as Silicon and this process uses low discharge energies avoiding micro-cracking. But EDM requires post processing such as chemical etching to achieve the desired surface quality. Mechanical micro-milling is also an effective method n creating complex 2D and 3D shapes in materials such as Silicon. Although there have been studies to show that the previously stated traditional manufacturing processes are capable of producing complex geometries, there is a shortage of performance characteristics comparison for those processes. Therefore, in this study, EDM roughing with chemical etch finishing and mechanical micro-milling is compared. To test on EDM, two different EDM processes were tested. One was roughing only EDM operation for optimizing productivity and electrode wear without considering surface quality. Other EDM process was the same roughing operation which is followed by a finishing operation to optimize surface quality without considering productivity and electrode wear. EDM experimentation was completed for 200, using single electrode for all features, keeping all EDM conditions constant except the discharge ON time. It was set at 1 and 5 and was found that the application of a larger discharge ON time decreases the wear rate. As mentioned earlier, In order to further improve the surface roughness and shape accuracy of the hemispherical features, two-step EDM rough and finishing trials were conducted using orbital finishing motion. Only a single feature per electrode was created due to higher electrode wear rate. Here, eight different trials were done using different discharge parameters. From the above two tests, it was found that EDMed surface can be considerably improve with adding a finishing EDM operation. But this increases the electrode wear and the cycle time by three times when compared to EDM without finishing process. Next testing was on mechanical micro-milling and there was no mold surface post processing necessary. A 4-flute PCD ball end mill was fabricated using 6-axis WEDM as the cutting tool. It had a negative rake angle and 7 cutting trials were done using constant spindle speed and federate. Approach type and the depth of cut was varied and it was found that when using the smallest depth of cut resulted a flawless surface at both the top and bottom edges. But this trial had the longest cycle time. The machined hemispherical mold features upper rim boundary trace for EDM roughing, EDM roughing and HNA etching, EDM roughing and finishing, EDM roughing, finishing and HNA etching and mechanical micro-machining was compared. It was found that the highest productivity could be achieved through EDM roughing but it also resulted the largest radial standard deviation hence the least geometric accuracy. The geometric accuracy can be improved by EDM finishing operations after roughing. It was also found that applying HNA etching after EDM finishing, results in decreasing the geometric accuracy. Mechanical micro-milling resulted 4 times smaller radial standard deviation than the EDM roughing and finishing process hence the most accurate geometric properties. In conclusion, it can be stated that combined EDM and etching technologies improve productivity with a single feature being fabricated in a matter of minutes, but resulting in poor shape accuracy. If it is need to be superior in geometric accuracy but not much in productivity as in EDM and etching, mechanical micro-milling is the best solution among all the tested traditional manufacturing methods.