Active alignment chuck for ultra-precision machining

Ultraprecision (UP) components have become common in everyday life products such as mobile phones or compact high resolution digital cameras. Thus the need of producing such components with high accuracy and low production cost. UP machine tools are capable of extremely high accuracy in tool positioning but still today the workpiece is positioned by hand, hence the high production cost of UP components. A fully automated chain of production has been developed within the EU-IP project "Production 4 micro". This paper describes the active alignment chuck for workholding in UP machining. The chuck has been provided with a high damping interface (HDI) and to evaluate its efficiency the chuck has undergone an experimenta modal analysis (EMA) as well as machining tests. The chosen operation was grooving by fly cutting using a diamond tool. The EMA showed that the HDI was effective for those modes where there was relative displacement between one side and the other of the HDI. This result was confirmed by the machining tests as well. The HDI resulted being effective in damping high frequency modes (around 4 - 5 kHz), hence one expected benefit would be a longer tool life.