Grain independed polishing
Revolution in diamond polishing
Goal
The objective of this project is to polish diamonds in a save way independent of the grain directions. Besides this advantage,
it is also a cold process making it suitable for difficult diamonds containing a lot of strain.
Description
The efficiency of the classical polishing operation strongly depends on the orientation of the diamond’s crystalline structure in
relation to the processing direction. Polishing of the diamonds requires each time a suitable processing direction to be
determined by experienced polisher. This restricts and complicates the polishing and has an impact on the production time
and the required degrees of freedom of the used machines and tools.
The ultimate goal of this project is to develop and optimize a new processing method that will work independent of the diamond’s crystalline structure (grain direction, “wasas”). This study concerns not only the throughout study of the diamond polishing process but also the development of the dedicated test machine.
The second stage of the project will accumulate the gained knowledge and should concentrate more on the achieving of “zoet” surfaces.
The economic consequences of industrial application of the new technology will be also discussed.
Current status
Feasibility study, second test machine prototype
Funding
The project is co-financed by IWT (contract no.: 080720).
