Generation of diamond wire sliced wafer surface based on the distribution of diamond grits

Diamond wire sawing is one of the abrasive machining processes. The cutting tool is a tiny steel wire coated with a large number of diamond grits. Although wire saw is widely used for slicing hard and brittle materials, it is still very complicated to be analyzed and understood because of the unique characteristics of the wire. This study takes the advantage of modern computer technology to simulate the wire sawing process kinematically. The wire parameters with random features including the sizes and positions of the abrasive grits have been considered in the wire model. Based on process parameters, the cutting process was simulated by mapping the cutting profile into the array representing the workpiece. The sliced surface topography was then generated depended on interaction between the active abrasive grits and the workpiece. Experiment was conducted to verify the simulation results. The effects of process parameters including wire speed, feed rate, the size and distribution of the diamond grits to the sliced wafer surface quality are also investigated. The approach proposed in this study makes it possible to investigate the effect of process parameters and diamond grits to improve the practical wire sawing process.