Radial Directional Vibration-Assisted Ductile-Mode Grinding of Engineering Ceramic

Abstract

Engineering ceramics have received significant attention in the recent years owing to their exceptional mechanical properties, which are expected to be beneficial for engineering applications. However, it has always been a great challenge to realize ductile-mode grinding in engineering ceramics, with one of the critical obstacles being the heat generation that limits the removal rate. As a result, thermal damages are often observed on the ground surfaces. This paper presents the ductile-mode grinding. In the process the grinding wheel is excited along the radial direction by applying an ultrasonic vibration of frequency is 38.5 kHz and amplitude of 0-2 μm. The wheel comes in contact with the Al2O3 ceramic at constant forces 18-24 N. Experimental results indicate that the ground surface is devoid of thermal damages, when removal rate of the vibration-assisted process is approximately 1.5 times higher than without vibration.Keywords: ductile-mode grinding, radial directional vibration, hard and brittle material, engineering ceramic, thermal damage