The ductile grinding of glass using diamond fibres oriented radially in a grinding wheel

Abstract

Diamond-coated fibres, produced by a hot filament chemical vapour deposition technique and having a high facet density, have been prepared for use as abrasives. Two grinding wheels containing such fibres have been fabricated with the fibres placed in a radial orientation. One wheel contained a single fibre, the other contained multiple fibres. The single diamond fibre wheel was used first to evaluate the potential for ductile grinding of BK7 glass. A ductile-brittle transition was found, occurring at a depth of cut of ∼1 μm over a range of feed rates (5–50 μm/s). The multiple diamond fibre wheel was then used to grind an area, using parameters identified by the single fibre tests. Microstructural analysis revealed that material removal was predominantly in the ductile mode.