Parametric Analysis and Optimization of Rotary Ultrasonic Machining of Zirconia (ZrO₂) Ceramics

Abstract Micro-channels are considered as the essential part of several medical applications such as microfluidics devices, lab on a chip, microbiology, etc. In most applications, fluid flow is required to pass through certain microchannels. The fluid flow characteristics such as flow rate and fluid dynamics are mainly accomplished based on the surface quality and dimensional accuracy of the microchannels. In this study, the microchannels are fabricated on zirconium oxide (ZrO2) using rotary ultrasonic machining (RUM). A full factorial design of experiments is employed in order to detect the influences of key input parameters of RUM including cutting speed (S), feed rate (FR), depth of cut (DOC), frequency (F) and amplitude (A) on surface roughness (Ra), edge chipping (EC), depth error (DE) and width error (WE) of the milled microchannels. Multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) was employed to determine the optimal parametric conditions for minimizing the values of Ra, EC, DE, and WE of the fabricated microchannels. Results revealed that the minimum value of Ra = 0.26 μm, EC = 10.1 μm, DE = 4.2% and WE = 7.2% can be accomplished through the multi-objective optimization at higher levels of frequency and amplitude and lower levels of feed rate, depth of cut and cutting speed.