High-Precision Cutting Edge Radius Measurement of Single Point Diamond Tools Using an Atomic Force Microscope and a Reverse Cutting Edge Artifact

This paper presents a measurement method for high-precision cutting edge radius of single point diamond tools using an atomic force microscope (AFM) and a reverse cutting edge artifact based on the edge reversal method. Reverse cutting edge artifact is fabricated by indenting a diamond tool into a soft metal workpiece with the bisector of the included angle between the tool’s rake face and clearance face perpendicular to the workpiece surface on a newly designed nanoindentation system. An AFM is applied to measure the topographies of the actual and the reverse diamond tool cutting edges. With the proposed edge reversal method, a cutting edge radius can be accurately evaluated based on two AFM topographies, from which the convolution effect of the AFM tip can be reduced. The accuracy of the measurement of cutting edge radius is significantly influenced by the geometric accuracy of reverse cutting edge artifact in the proposed measurement method. In the nanoindentation system, the system operation is optimized for achieving high-precision control of the indentation depth of reverse cutting edFigurege artifact. The influence of elastic recovery and the AFM cantilever tip radius on the accuracy of cutting edge radius measurement are investigated. Diamond tools with different nose radii are also measured. The reliability and capability of the proposed measurement method for cutting edge radius and the designed nanoindentation system are demonstrated through a series of experiments.