Review on manufacturing diamond abrasive tools by additive manufacturing technology

Abstract

Diamond abrasive tools play an important role in high-efficient and precision machining of hard and brittle materials such as engineering ceramics, glass and semiconductors. Due to the great challenge presented by the increase of part manufacturing quality, forming requirements and processing efficiency, the improvement of tool’s structure has become the key way for abrasive tools to overcome this challenge, but it has brought difficulties to tool manufacturing. In recent years, additive manufacturing technology has attracted much attention because of its excellent ability to form complex structures. The use of additive manufacturing technology for fabricating diamond abrasive tools has been considered as a potential means to solve the problem, therefore, it has become a research hotspot. Based on the existing relevant research reports, the work of this paper mainly focuses on stereo lithography apparatus technology (SLA), selective laser sintering technology (SLS) and laser selective melting technology (SLM), summarizes the research progress of existing additive manufacturing technology in the fabrication of diamond abrasive tools, analyzes the different characteristics of each method in its manufacturing process, and puts forward prospects and suggestions for making diamond abrasive tools by using this type of technology.

Keywords

• additive manufacturing
• diamond
• abrasive tools
• structural design