In order to study the influence of scratch direction on the deformation characteristics and material removal mechanism of optical glass BK7, nanoscratching experiments were conducted on a Nano indenter using Vickers indenter. Results indicate that the face-forward scratch is more likely to induce the initiation and propagation of lateral cracks, which is found to be more beneficial to material removal processes; in contrast, small chips and debris are released from the machined grooves without introducing lateral cracks in the edge-forward condition, leading to poor material removal efficiency. In addition, the choice of scratch direction can make differences to the elastic recovery rate of optical glass BK7. The results revealed that both the elastic recovery rate and the residual stresses of the material under the face-forward scratching are greater than those of the edge-forward scratching. A theoretical model for coefficient of friction (COF) under different scratch directions was established. It is found that the COF between indenter and workpiece in the edge-forward scratching is larger than the face-forward scratching under otherwise identical conditions, this finding is consistent with experimental results. A stress field analysis using finite element method (FEM) was conducted to understand the different crack initiation and propagation behaviors from different scratch directions. The current study discusses the significance of scratch direction on material removal behavior of optical glass BK7, and the results would encourage further research on investigating the connections between tool geometry and material removal mechanism.
Keywords: material removal coefficient of friction; nanoscratching; optical glass BK7; scratch direction.