Title: Comparative grindability study of composite ceramic and conventional ceramic

Authors: Vivek Kumar Verma, Vijayender Singh, Sudarsan Ghosh

Addresses: House no. 222, Sector 3, Vikas Nagar, Lucknow 226022, Uttar Pradesh, India. ' Flat no. 38, I.P. block-1, IIT-Delhi Campus, New Delhi 110016, India. ' Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT-Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India

Abstract: Grinding is a widely used machining and finishing operation for the ceramic materials. Nowadays, a new variant of composite ceramics has also been developed. In many applications, these composite ceramics too need to be ground. The present study aims to experimentally investigate the grindability aspects of such a composite ceramic (AlSiTi) and also compare those grindability aspects of the composite ceramic with a conventional ceramic (SiC). Grinding forces, specific grinding energy and the surface integrity including the subsurface damage and surface roughness are the responses measured during the detailed experiments performed where grinding parameters like wheel speed, table speed and depth of cut are varied over a domain. Optical microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM) have been used to analyse the ground surface, subsurface damage and the grinding swarfs. The results provide valuable insight into the grindability aspects of the composite ceramic (AlSiTi). Cracks and voids produced on the surface and subsurface of the composite ceramic are found to be significantly different from those observed while grinding the conventional ceramic under the same process parametric conditions.

Keywords: composite ceramics; grinding specific energy; subsurface damage; grinding swarfs; grindability; machinability; grinding forces; surface integrity; surface roughness; speed; table speed; depth of cut; cracks; voids.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAT.2010.034055

International Journal of Abrasive Technology, 2010 Vol.3 No.3, pp.259 - 273

Available online: 06 Jul 2010 *
