Abstract
Ceramic balls are expected to become useful for tougher bearings than conventional ones. However, the conventional ball lapping method which uses a couple of flat and V-groove lapping plates, needs so long machining time. In present paper, efficient lapping method of silicon nitride balls has been proposed. In this method, it is designed that V-groove lapping plate is separated into two parts and three plates are able to rotate independently. In this paper the theoretical analysis of the ball motion mechanism for the proposed method is provided. The results obtained are as follows. (1) In the case with separated V-groove lapping plates, the spin angle θ of ball is able to be controlled by changing the revolutionary speeds of flat, outer V-groove and inner V-groove lapping plates. (2) The stock removal rate is increased with spin angle θ, because relative slide distance in the contact surface between ball and lapping plate increase with it.
