Shear-mode Grinding of Brittle Materials and Evaluating Ground Surfaces

Abstract

In order to clarify pragmatic aspects of shear-mode grinding, grinding processes and characteristics of ground surfaces were investigated. First, grinding experiments were carried out, using metal bond diamond wheels, resinoid bond diamond wheels and BK7 specimen. Corresponding to the number of infeed, in shear-mode grinding with metal bond wheels, the normal grinding force increases linearly and later reaches a stable state which shows a constant grinding force and no further residual stock removal. But with resinoid bond wheel no stable state can be found. Next, a set of surfaces of BK7 was fabricated by shear-mode grinding, another set by polishing and then the sets were compared. Two techniques were used to evaluate ground glass surfaces : rate of etch and super microindentation. As the results, Etching rate of ground surfaces is “higher” than that of plolished surfaces for the first 0.2 μm. And it is found by super microindentation tests that the ground specimen appears “softer” than the plolished one for the first 0.1 μm.