Design and development of a multipurpose portable heating setup for 45S5 bioglass and other ceramic samples

As per the voices in the precision manufacturing industries, the machining of brittle materials such as glass and diamond is intricate owing to their thermo-mechanical properties. Machining of the brittle material with a localized heating method produced softness in the work material during the operation, resulting in microcracks and voids on the finished surface due to thermal stresses. Such pressing issues are solved by dry machining with bulk heating. The objective of the present research is to develop a sophisticated lab-made portable multipurpose heating setup for enabling various potent applications such as machining, elevated temperature scratch and indentation tests, and grinding, among other things, on hard and brittle materials. The mentioned process is done by softening the material with preheating of the samples. The overall dimensions of the developed setup are 105 × 150 × 53 mm³. This setup has been evaluated at different temperatures of the 45S5 bioglass sample surface up to 426 °C and is capable of holding and heating the samples.