The evaluation of chemical wear on single crystal diamond tools while diamond turning a binary Cu-Ni alloy system

The current work describes the evaluation of chemical wear on diamond tools while diamond turning copper nickel alloys of varying composition. The primary goal of my project is to quantify the chemical wear of single crystal diamond tools while diamond turning Cu-Ni alloys of different compositions. Pure copper is commonly understood to give negligible tool wear, while pure nickel is reported to give rapid wear. The Cu-Ni equilibrium phase diagram shows a single phase at all compositions. The development and testing of a method to evaluate and quantify diamond tool wear is also described within the current work. The method chosen for development is the metrology of the progressive edge recession of the diamond. A procedure of progressive plunge cuts into an ultra-bright acid copper before and after diamond turning of the workpiece takes a snapshot of the edge of the diamond tool as the cutting distance increases. An algorithm executed in MatLabRTM displays the residual tool wear after removal of the initial diamond tool geometry. A theoretical model has been developed to predict the chemical diamond tool wear and the results will be shown within the body of work.