Horizontal Mill for Grinding Large Ceramic Ogives

The instrumentation proposed is a Usach 200 Horizontal Machining Center (HMC) with appropriate tooling for the fabrication of large ceramic ogives necessary for optical seekers. The transmitted wavefront requirements, coupled with the shape of an ogive and hardness and strength of the ceramic material have made the production of ogives very difficult. While there are commercial capabilities for producing smaller ogives, the necessary size requirements of state of the art large ogives exceeds current commercial capabilities. The Penn State Electro-Optics Center (EOC) focuses on transitioning technology relevant to DoD community from the laboratory to the field. We have in-house expertise and prior experience in the fabrication of optical components manufactured from novel optical materials such as sapphire, spinel, and polycrystalline ceramics. The proposed HMC provides several key benefits when compared to alternative fabrication equipment. For one, the geometry of an HMC provides a much stiffer platform resulting in more consistent machining results. In addition, a HMC utilizes gravitational forces for swarf evacuation, resulting in extended tool life. The proposed equipment should produce ogives with lower figure error and better finish that will result in lower costs and higher yields.