Molecular dynamics simulation of the effect of tool edge radius on cutting forces and cutting region in nanoscale ductile cutting of silicon

Unlike in conventional cutting processes, where the undeformed chip thickness is significant compared to the cutting tool edge radius, in nanoscale cutting processes, the undeformed chip thickness is very small, on the nanoscales. Therefore, the tool edge radius can not been ignored. It has been found that there is a brittle-ductile transition in cutting of brittle materials when the cutting tool edge radius is reduced to nanoscale and the undeformed chip thickness is smaller than the tool edge radius. In order to better understand the mechanism of the transition, a molecular dynamics (MD) method, which is different from continuous linear mechanics, is employed to model and simulate the nanoscale ductile mode cutting process of monocrystalline silicon wafer. The simulated variation of the cutting forces with the tool cutting edge radius is compared with the results of the cutting force from experimental cutting tests and they show a good agreement. In the simulated results, it can be seen that the thrust force is much larger than the cutting force in cutting. The simulated results also denote that the resultant force in the cutting process is not uniformly distributed along the cutting tool edge. In the simulation, the elastic springback of small thickness is observed on the machined workpiece surface.