Research advances on primary machining technologies of zirconia ceramics

Zirconia ceramics are widely used in aerospace, precision machinery, electronics, and biomedical fields because of their high temperature resistance, wear resistance, strong electromagnetic response, and biocompatibility. Nevertheless, high brittleness and low shear strength seriously hinder the large-scale application of zirconia ceramics in industrial production. This paper mainly reviews the research advances on primary machining technologies of zirconia ceramics from two aspects. One aspect is traditional machining of zirconia ceramics, which primarily focuses on the issues such as tool wear, machined surface quality, and cutting force in milling and grinding of zirconia ceramics. And the other aspect is non-traditional machining of zirconia ceramics, which primarily focuses on material removal rate and machined surface quality of zirconia ceramics using the electrical discharge machining (EDM) by assisting electrode method. The machinability and machining quality of zirconia composite ceramics by EDM with the adding conductive phase method have also been analyzed. Furthermore, for the auxiliary machining methods, the effects of ultrasonic vibration-assisted machining (UVAM) and laser-assisted machining (LAM) of zirconia ceramics are comparatively analyzed and elaborated. Subsequently, the research progress of traditional and non-traditional machining of zirconia ceramics is summarized and discussed. Finally, different machining methods of zirconia ceramics were prospected, and their future development trends were discussed, which provides a reference for further improving the machining efficiency and accuracy of zirconia ceramics.