Design and validation of a vacuum chuck for ultra-precision diamond turning of Cu-OFE discs

This study presents the development of a customized one-piece vacuum chuck designed for the ultra-precision diamond turning of high-purity copper discs at CERN’s AWAKE project. By replacing traditional mechanical clamping systems that previously caused 80% of parts to be non-compliant due to deformations, this system ensures extreme flatness and roughness tolerances. Experimental testing on a HEMBRUG Mikroturn 100 lathe validated a clamping force of 248 N at 70 mbar, providing a safety factor over 13 times the required force for finishing operations. Furthermore, ANSYS simulations confirmed that the induced elastic deformation is only 34.8 nm, representing less than 2% of the total allowed flatness tolerance.