Force Controlled Grinding of Ceramic Materials

Brittle materials like ceramics or glass can be machined by cutting with negative rake angles and by abrasive machining processes. Especially grinding allows for low surface roughness and high shape accuracy. Conventional path-controlled grinding processes may damage functional surfaces if brittle fracture occurs and may thus lead to lateral, radial and axial cracks. High grinding forces can be a reason for brittle fracture when grinding ceramic materials. A solution for this effect may be the application of force controlled grinding processes. In this paper adapted control algorithms were implemented for force controlled grinding and verified in grinding experiments. As an example, cylindrical grooves were ground with an injection moulded spherical grinding tool in alumina and zirconia ceramics. After grinding surface roughness, shape accuracy and process forces are analysed and discussed.