Requirements of an industrially applicable microcutting process for steel micro-structures

Micro-cutting offers good potentialities in order to manufacture small and medium lot sizes of micro-parts with arbitrary geometry at an economically reasonable expense. Either by direct machining or as a means to fabricate moulds for micro injection moulding, the major advantages turn out to be large removal rates, good compliance with tolerance ranges, high surface quality and a wide choice of materials which can be processed. Particularly if highly wear resistant materials are to be processes, as it is the case in mould fabrication for powder injection moulding, micro cutting of steel is a very eligible option. Consequently, the possibility to manufacture wear resistant micro structures of high aspect ratios by mechanical cutting is demonstrated with regard to its specific requirements in terms of transferability of the laboratory process into an industrial manufacturing process. Accordingly the paper focuses on repeatability of machining results and machining capabilities.