Glass micro-cutting by Spark Assisted Chemical Engraving

Glass remains a difficult to machine material. Its brittleness, chemical resistance and relatively high thermal conductivity challenges available technologies. An interesting approach is to the use of hybrid technologies such as Spark Assisted Chemical Engraving (SACE) which is a thermochemical process. Micro-drilling and micro-milling were intensively characterised and developed. SACE can however as well be used to micro-cut glass. This aspect was so far never discussed in the literature and no systematic data about its performance are available. As a first step, basic parameters such as depth of cut and tool feed rate must be determined. This communication aims to report systematic experiments on micro-cutting glass by SACE technology and demonstrates how using available data from SACE microdrilling the maximal depth-of-cut and tool feed can be determined. Relations for depth-of-cut and tool feedrate are proposed to use as guidance for glass micro-cutting.