Analysis on ground surface in ultrasonic face grinding of silicon carbide (SiC) ceramic with minor vibration amplitude. Issue 15 (1st August 2021) - Dai, Chenwei
Abstract: Compared to conventional grinding, ultrasonic face grinding of SiC ceramic with vibration amplitude more than 3 μm has been proved to improve the machining efficiency but usually face the problem of reducing the workpiece surface quality. The material removal mechanism and ground surface quality by ultrasonic face grinding using minor vibration amplitude (less than 1 μm) still remains uncertain and needs to be further investigated. In the present work, experiments of ultrasonic face grinding of SiC ceramic are carried out to study the influence of processing parameters (e.g. depth of cut, wheel speed and ultrasonic vibration amplitude) on the surface finish. The results show that both the grinding forces and ground surface roughness increase significantly with the increase of depth of cut and the decrease of wheel speed. However, with the increase of ultrasonic vibration amplitude, the grinding forces decrease rapidly first and then keep steady, and the ground surface roughness shows three variation stages: dropping, climbing and stabilizing, which achieves the smallest value of 0.04 μm at the amplitude of 0.216 μm. From the analysis of acquired workpiece surface morphology and image processing result, the proportion of chunks and pits on the workpiece surface is reduced due to ductile removal in case of ultrasonic vibration amplitude less than 0.2 μm, but increases when the amplitude is more than 0.2 μm because the material is removed in brittle domain. Finally, a sample machined at relatively high wheel speed and minor vibration amplitude is provided to support the findings. The proposed investigation provides a new approach to achieve mirror surface of SiC ceramic using ultrasonic face grinding.