Diamond-point turning is an efficient technique for machining low-density polystyrene foam, and the surface finish can be substantially improved by grinding. However, both diamond-point turning and grinding tend to tear and fracture cell walls and leave asperities formed by agglomerations of fragmented cell walls. Vibratoming is proving to be an excellent technique to form planar surfaces in polystyrene, and the machining characteristics of vibratoming and diamond-point turning are compared.Our work has demonstrated that proper evaluation of surface structures in low density polystyrene foam requires stereoscopic examinations; tilts of + and − 3 1/2 degrees were used for the stereo pairs. Coating does not seriously distort low-density polystyrene foam. Therefore, the specimens were gold-palladium coated and examined in a Hitachi S-800 FESEM at 5 kV.
Predictive modeling of surface finish in fine grinding
