There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Manufacturing and measurement of freeform optics

Ultra-precision machining (UPM) is capable of manufacturing a high quality surface at a nanometric surface roughness. For such high quality surface in a UPM process, due to the machining complexity any variable would be possible to deteriorate surface quality, consequently receiving much attention and interest. The general factors are summarized as machine tool, cutting conditions, tool geometry, environmental conditions, material property, chip formation, tool wear, vibration etc. This paper aims to review the current state of the art in studying the surface roughness formation and the factors influencing surface roughness in UPM. Firstly, the surface roughness characteristics in UPM is introduced. Then in UPM, a wide variety of factors for surface roughness are then reviewed in detail and the mechanism of surface roughness formation is concluded thoroughly. Finally, the challenges and opportunities faced by industry and academia are discussed and several principle conclusions are drawn.

A review of surface roughness generation in ultra-precision machining

Controlling dropwise condensation is fundamental to water-harvesting systems, desalination, thermal power generation, air conditioning, distillation towers, and numerous other applications. For any of these, it is essential to design surfaces that enable droplets to grow rapidly and to be shed as quickly as possible. However, approaches based on microscale, nanoscale or molecular-scale textures suffer from intrinsic trade-offs that make it difficult to optimize both growth and transport at once. Here we present a conceptually different design approach—based on principles derived from Namib desert beetles, cacti, and pitcher plants—that synergistically combines these aspects of condensation and substantially outperforms other synthetic surfaces. Inspired by an unconventional interpretation of the role of the beetle’s bumpy surface geometry in promoting condensation, and using theoretical modelling, we show how to maximize vapour diffusion fluxat the apex of convex millimetric bumps by optimizing the radius of curvature and cross-sectional shape. Integrating this apex geometry with a widening slope, analogous to cactus spines, directly couples facilitated droplet growth with fast directional transport, by creating a free-energy profile that drives the droplet down the slope before its growth rate can decrease. This coupling is further enhanced by a slippery, pitcher-plant-inspired nanocoating that facilitates feedback between coalescence-driven growth and capillary-driven motion on the way down. Bumps that are rationally designed to integrate these mechanisms are able to grow and transport large droplets even against gravity and overcome the effect of an unfavourable temperature gradient. We further observe an unprecedented sixfold-higher exponent of growth rate, faster onset, higher steady-state turnover rate, and a greater volume of water collected compared to other surfaces. We envision that this fundamental understanding and rational design strategy can be applied to a wide range of water-harvesting and phase-change heat-transfer applications.

/pdf/condensation-on-slippery-asymmetric-bumps-4426ixsajt.pdf

Condensation on Slippery Asymmetric Bumps

Fly cutting in ultra-precision machining (UPM), termed ultra-precision fly cutting (UPFC), is an intermittent cutting process in which a diamond tool is mounted with a spindle to intermittently cut a workpiece. The process offers the high flexibility necessary for fabricating freeform, micro/nano-structural surfaces, as well as hybrid structural surfaces with sub-micrometric form error and nanometric surface roughness, and its constant cutting velocity provides uniform high surface quality. However, in addition to its low machining efficiency, UPFC’s intermittent cutting process results in distinctive surface generation mechanisms, covering intermittent tool-workpiece relative motion, tool geometry imprinted into a machined surface, and surface material separation and deformation. General factors, such as cutting conditions, tool geometry, material factors (material property change, material swelling and recovery, and material separation mechanism), kinematic and dynamic errors, assembling errors, cutting strategies, tool path, and workpiece geometry, are individual to UPFC and universal in UPM. Accordingly, this paper focuses on the current investigation of fly cutting applied into surface generation in UPM. Conclusions are reached and the challenges and opportunities for further studies are discussed.

A review of fly cutting applied to surface generation in ultra-precision machining

Due to the rapid development of precision manufacturing technology, much research has been conducted in the field of multisensor measurement and data fusion technology with a goal of enhancing monitoring capabilities in terms of measurement accuracy and information richness, thereby improving the efficiency and precision of manufacturing. In a multisensor system, each sensor independently measures certain parameters. Then, the system uses a relevant signal-processing algorithm to combine all of the independent measurements into a comprehensive set of measurement results. The purpose of this paper is to describe multisensor measurement and data fusion technology and its applications in precision monitoring systems. The architecture of multisensor measurement systems is reviewed, and some implementations in manufacturing systems are presented. In addition to the multisensor measurement system, related data fusion methods and algorithms are summarized. Further perspectives on multisensor monitoring and data fusion technology are included at the end of this paper.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2631-7990/ab7ae6/pdf

Multi-sensor measurement and data fusion technology for manufacturing process monitoring: a literature review

Ultra-precision machining has drawn much attention and the error compensation is an essential issue for improving the accuracy of the machining process. However, the analysis of kinematics errors on the surface generation in ultra-precision machining has received relatively little attention. Ultra-precision machine can be represented as a multi-body system. Based on the theory of multi-body system, a kinematics model of two-axis ultra-precision machining system has been developed in the present study. Hence, a software error compensation method is incorporated which is carried out by modifying the idea tool path in the NC program. The modified NC program takes into account the kinematics error factors and so the actual tool path generation can be compensated for the kinematics errors on the machining of the surface of the workpiece. To verify the theoretical kinematics model and the error compensation method, a series of machining experiments have been conducted and the experimental results indicate that better surface quality was achieved with the implementation of the proposed compensation method.

A kinematics and experimental analysis of form error compensation in ultra-precision machining

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology is considered one of the most promising manufacturing technologies in the aerospace and defense industries. However, AM components are known to have various internal defects, such as powder agglomeration, balling, porosity, internal cracks and thermal/internal stress, which can significantly affect the quality, mechanical properties and safety of final parts. Therefore, defect inspection methods are important for reducing manufactured defects and improving the surface quality and mechanical properties of AM components. This paper describes defect inspection technologies and their applications in AM processes. The architecture of defects in AM processes is reviewed. Traditional defect detection technology and the surface defect detection methods based on deep learning are summarized, and future aspects are suggested.

/pdf/defect-inspection-technologies-for-additive-manufacturing-5d4hmmd82j.pdf

Defect inspection technologies for additive manufacturing

One of the essential problems in the measurement of the freeform surfaces on a coordinate measuring machine is to design appropriate sampling plans to improve the industrial practice in terms of the tradeoff between the sampling accuracy and the efficiency. This paper presents a curve network sampling strategy to approximate the measured surface within a required accuracy while minimizing the cost and time for the measurement by adaptively deriving the optimal sampling locations. The method iteratively extracts two sets of iso-planar curves along two different directions on the parts to form a curve network, which is used to reconstruct the measured surfaces based on the Gordon surface fitting method. Two criteria are integrated to determine the locations of the sampled curves in the sampling process, including the surface complexity and the deviation of the reconstructed surfaces from the CAD model. Both the computer simulation and the actual measurement are conducted to verify the superior sampling efficiency of the proposed method to the conventional raster fashion sampling in measuring freeform surfaces.

Lingbao Kong

Papers

Multi-sensor measurement and data fusion technology for manufacturing process monitoring: a literature review

A kinematics and experimental analysis of form error compensation in ultra-precision machining

Defect inspection technologies for additive manufacturing

A Curve Network Sampling Strategy for Measurement of Freeform Surfaces on Coordinate Measuring Machines

An investigation into surface generation in ultra-precision raster milling