| The study and development of micromachining technology has been an area of ongoing interest for numerous researchers over the past few decades. Micromachining is vital for the development of new materials, tooling and processes. It also plays an important role in the optimization of tool design, cutting process parameters and workpiece surface finish.; One of the most challenging fields of research in material science in general, and in micromachining in particular is linking material properties acquisition and modeling in the nanometric scale with micro-scale cutting. Due to computational limitations, it is presently impossible to inflate atomic level modeling and simulations to macro sized components. The relation between theoretical computations at the nanometric level with the micro and macro-scale is not available in the literature. The acquired knowledge of material behaviour at the nanometric level will provide insight into process development, modeling and the optimization of critical processes.; In this thesis, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations and dislocation theory are introduced together as a link between nano-scale and meso-scale modules. As well, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulations are used to link meso-scale and macro-scale modules.; The primary objective of this research is to utilize the nanometric scale information, acquired from molecular dynamic simulations of the material(s), to model nano and micro-cutting processes. The second objective is to use these models to optimize the output of the cutting process by selecting different cutting parameters and tools to achieve specific goals.; The approach used in this research is based on the MD simulation of a uniaxial tension test configuration from which key material properties are extracted. The nanometric scale information is introduced to the two dimensional FEA micro-cutting simulations that are used to evaluate the cutting force. The FEA will provide the corresponding cutting forces and tool/workpiece deflections for several cutting processes with different process parameters. These values will be used in newly developed optimization software to select the best cutting tool, as well as the optimized cutting process parameters. Finally, this process will serve a specific task with a particular objective in areas such as, improving workpiece surface finish, tool life and calculating production rate and cutting cost. |
