Good News!! ultrasonic assised drilling

Hi Chris
As you remember, I sent an email near 5 month ago about Ultrasonic Drilling. The good news is I made it and tested it this week!! It works like hell.
I finished Ansys analysis near 2 month ago. It took almost a month to learn how to work with the software and after another month I succeeded in running the first analysis. At first I used stepped horn on analysis but I couldn’t reach 20KHz resonance frequency with it (Because of the addition of drill and stud screws and the size of either ends) So I designed a new horn type!! I mixed conical and stepped horn together!! After that I reached the 20 KHz resonance frequency with very good stress safety factor (about 3.5) . Then I started to make the horn ( I used AL7075 as the horn material). This Monday after I assembled all acoustic head’s parts together, I used Network Analyzer device to check what the resonance frequency of whole system is. The answer was unbelievable! It was exactly the same as the Ansys analysis. I must say that resonance frequency is directly related with the length of the drill and how much its out of the horn. I came to this conclusion with both Ansys analysis and Network Analyzer device. I strongly recommend Ansys modal analysis for designing acoustic head’s parts. The horn which I used is very complicated. It is designed to install drill on it and 4 stud screws will be fasten on it. I simulated the exact horn with Ansys and the result was accurate.
That day I did a test on brick, stone and ceramic, results were unbelievable. It drills every hard material with out adding any pressure to the system, with very simple HSS drill and you know I didn’t rotate the drill!!
Actually I haven’t tested it on any metal yet (My thesis subject is Ultrasonic Assisted Drilling on Aviator Alloys, such as Inconel.)
Fortunately nothing happened to the drill and it’s own resonance wasn’t near the system resonance.( you were concerned about this matter)
I recorded the tests with my camera and I also took some photos. If you want I can send them to you. (Just tell me for which address should I send them to)
I must thank you very much because I learned a lot from your website. I just have one request from you. Could you possibly make the FEA chapter of your thesis available online? It will be very useful for all of us.