A Method of Performance Estimation of Grinding Fluids in Machining Ceramics

Abstract

The chief factors influencing the phenomenon of grinding ceramics are wheel speed, feed, depth of cut, grain size, concentration, etc. One of them is grinding fluid. In this paper, the methodology of ranking the fluids in order of suitability for the grinding, which are of one type of emulsion, two types of soluble and five types of straight oils, is presented, using the experimental results of abrasive cut-off ceramics which are three types of Si₃N₄, SiC and ZrO₂. The performance index is assessed by presence or absence of fume during the abrasive cut-off process. It is difficult to evaluate such index quantatively, since fuming phenomenon in itself is qualitative. So dual scaling was used in ranking fluids quantatively. The result shows that soluble oil is proper for processing ceramics, while emulsion is improper. By testing the correlation between the order of suitability in fluids and the characteristics of the fluids, the characteristics for the suitability are selected. In consequence, viscosity and the amount of sulphur are selected. That is, the higher viscosity and/or the more sulphur in fluid, the worse the suitability is.