Method for machining ceramic workpiece with composite vibration

Abstract

A method for machining a ceramic workpiece includes providing a sonotrode that has a transducer and a horn arranged along an axis, and the horn has helical slots and terminates at a tip, bringing the tip into proximity of the ceramic workpiece and providing an abrasive media to a work zone around the tip, using the transducer to produce ultrasonic vibration that axially propagates down the horn and causes axial vibration at the tip, and the helical slots convert a portion of the axial vibration to torsional vibration at the tip, and the axial vibration and the torsional vibration causing the abrasive media to abrade the ceramic workpiece in the work zone and thereby remove a localized portion of the ceramic workpiece.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.