The influence of roughness on the resistance to impact of different CAD/CAM dental ceramics

This study aimed to investigate the effect of surface roughness (polished vs. CAD/CAM milling simulation) on impact strength of five dental ceramics for manufacturing CAD/CAM monolithic restorations. Specimens of five ceramics (FC- feldspathic glass-ceramic; PICN- polymer-infiltrated ceramic-network; ZLS- zirconia-reinforced lithium silicate glass-ceramic; LD- lithium disilicate glass-ceramic; YZ- yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal ceramic) to be tested under impact (15×10×2mm3; n= 15) were divided into two groups, according to surface treatment: polishing (pol) and grinding (gri) as CAD/CAM milling simulation. Impact strength was tested using the Dynstat method. Roughness, topographic, fractographic and finite element analyses were performed. The impact strength data were analyzed by Weibull, and Pearson correlation was used to correlate roughness and impact strength data. The CAD/CAM milling simulation led to significantly (p<0.05) greater roughness (Ra and Rz) and statistically reduced the impact strength for PICN (polPICN= 4.59 to griPICN= 1.09; ±76% decrease), for LD (polLD= 17.69 to griLD= 10.09; ±43% decrease) and for YZ (polYZ= 74.99 to griYZ= 20.67; ±72% decrease) ceramics; and also promoted a more irregular topography with scratches and grooves. Fractographic and FEA analyses depicted the origin of failure at the higher stress concentration side during the impact test, where the pendulum impacted. The CAD/CAM milling simulation significantly decreased the impact strength of the evaluated ceramic materials.

Milling Simulation-Based Method to Evaluate Manufacturability of Machine Parts

The designers of mechanical products are generally not experts in machining. Therefore, they often design parts with inherent machining difficulties. Although various design for manufacturability tools have been developed to avoid such problems, their use in practice remains limited due to their lack of versatility. We develop a novel piece of software that can automatically detect difficult-to-machine shapes in a part. Using this software, the designer can determine which shapes are difficult to produce using conventional cutting by themselves, and can modify the shape on the spot. In the Internet-based part manufacturing business, the same software can be used to check whether the given part can be produced using the standard milling operations predetermined in a company. Our system is based on “milling simulation”. It detects any shapes that cannot be produced using the prepared cutting tools by executing the milling simulations with the tools, and then visualizing shapes that remain unmachined after all simulations. In this study, the acceleration of the processing is realized using graphics processing unit technology, and it is possible to extract difficult-to-machine shapes in several minutes using a standard PC.

Proposal of Contour Line Model for High-Speed End Milling Simulation

A contour line model for end milling simulation, which realizes high-speed arithmetic processing by reducing memory usage, is proposed. In this model, a 3-dimensional shape can be expressed by superimposing the contour lines of the cross-sections obtained by dividing the workpiece along any axial direction. Therefore, the memory usage is reduced compared to a Z-map model or a voxel model as the interior information of the object can be eliminated. The contour line model can also be applied to complicated shapes having overhangs. Furthermore, cutting volume can be calculated from the interference area enclosed by two contour lines of the workpiece and the tool cross-sections. The workpiece shape can be changed by eliminating the interference area. In the contour line model, cutting force can also be predicted with an instantaneous rigid force model using the uncut chip thickness for each cutting edge from the positional relationship between the interference area and the cutting edge. To validate the proposed model, cutting experiments were conducted, which confirmed that the predicted machining shape had good agreement with the actual machined shape. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the cutting force can be predicted accurately.

Effects of Milling Parameters on Distribution of Residual Stress During the Milling of Curved Thin-Walled Parts

With the increasing application of curved thin-walled parts, the evaluation and control of curved surface residual stress in milling are becoming increasingly demanding. However, effects of milling parameters on distribution of residual stress remains a major challenge in the present aerospace research areas. In this paper, , impacts of milling parameters on curved surface residual stress have been investigated in a series of residual stress experiments and simulations. It is found that the residual stress can be lowered by increasing milling speed and tool radius within a reasonable range. The superposition of curved surface residual stress under two machining conditions have been analyzed using the milling simulation model. It has been found that the curved surface residual stress induced by the subsequent cutting will be superimposed on the curved surface residual stress induced by the previous cutting and that the superposition rates of residual stress induced by up milling are larger than down milling.