Development of 3 DOF Ultrasonic Vibration Tool for Elliptical Vibration Cutting of Sculptured Surfaces

A new machining method is proposed to obtain sculptured mirror surfaces by applying elliptical vibration cutting. The tool is vibrated elliptically unlike rotated end mills and fed along the sculptured surface in the proposed method. A 3 DOF ultrasonic vibration tool is developed, which can generate an arbitrary ultrasonic elliptical vibration in the 3D space so that it is suitable to machine the 3D sculptured surfaces. A precision machine tool is also developed, and the proposed method is successfully applied to mirror surface machining of hardened die steel.