Experimental investigation of damage formation and material removal in ultrasonic assisted grinding of RBSiC

Abstract

Abstract Ultrasonic assisted grinding (UAG) has been considered as a prominent processing method of the reaction bonded silicon carbide (RBSiC). To improve the knowledge of UAG process, both conventional grinding (CG) and UAG were used to process the RBSiC for in-depth investigation. Grinding forces, surface topographies, and subsurface damages during CG and UAG were compared. Furtherly, the ground surface was analyzed on aspects of both topographical characteristics and material removal mechanism. The results indicated that the removal of material is mainly achieved by the intersections of cracks initiated from both big SiC particles and mixture area of silicon matrix and small SiC grains. The crack propagation during UAG was more intensified due to the ultrasonic impact, which results in higher efficiency of machining RBSiC.