Demand for the high-precision and high-efficiency machining of hard ceramics, such as silicon carbide for semiconductors and hardened steel for molding dies, has significantly increased for optical and medical devices as well as for powered devices in automobiles. Certain types of hard metals can be machined by deterministic precision-cutting processes. However, hard and brittle ceramics, hardened steel for molds, and semiconductor materials have to be machined using precision abrasive technologies, such as grinding, polishing, and ultrasonic vibration technologies that use diamond super abrasives. The machining of high-precision components and their molds/dies using abrasive processes is very difficult due to their complex and nondeterministic natures as well as their complex textured surfaces. Furthermore, the development of new cutting-edge tools or machining methods and the active use of physicochemical phenomena are key to the development of high-precision and high-efficiency machining.

This special issue features 11 research papers on the most recent advances in precision abrasive technologies. These papers cover the following topics:

- Characteristics of abrasive grains in creep-feed grinding

- Quantitative evaluation of the surface profiles of grinding wheels

- ELID grinding using elastic wheels

- Nano-topographies of ground surfaces

- Novel grinding wheels

- Grinding characteristics of turbine blade materials

- Polishing mechanisms

- Polishing technologies using magnetic fluid slurries

- Application of ultrasonic vibration machining

- Turning and rotary cutting technologies

This issue is expected to help its readers to understand recent developments in abrasive technologies and to lead to further research.

We deeply appreciate the careful work of all the authors, and we thank the reviewers for their incisive efforts.

This paper deals with the microscopic wear characteristics of ceramic (Seeded Gel, SG) grinding wheels used in creep feed grinding. Creep feed grinding experiments with SG grinding wheels were carried out compared to rose-pink alumina (RA) grinding wheels. To clear the wear characteristics of the wheel working surface in creep feed grinding, changes in the shapes of grain cutting edges were observed by a field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). This is a self-sharpening phenomenon based on micro fractures generated on the top of SG grain cutting edges. On the other hand, large fracture and attritious wear effected RA grain cutting edges. In addition, the features of any grain cutting edges were evaluated using attritious wear flat percentage. Changes in attritious wear flat percentage of SG grits maintained constant value and were stable. From these results, the influence of wear mode of the grinding wheel on grinding characteristics parameter, such as grinding force and workpiece surface roughness, is understood.

In the grinding process, the grinding wheel surface condition changes depending on the dressing conditions, which affects the ground surface roughness and grinding resistance. Several studies have been reported on the practical application of dressing using prismatic dressers in recent years. However, only a few studies that quantitatively evaluate the effects of differences in dressing conditions using prismatic dresser on the ground surface roughness and grinding resistance have been reported. Thus, this study aims to evaluate quantitatively the effect of the difference in dressing conditions using the prismatic dresser on the ground surface roughness and grinding resistance by focusing on the dressing resistance. In the experiment, dressing is performed by changing the dressing lead and the depth of dressing cut with a prismatic dresser, and the ground surface roughness and grinding resistance are measured. Consequently, by increasing the dressing lead and the depth of dressing cut, the ground surface roughness increased, and the grinding resistance decreased. This phenomenon was caused by the increase in dressing resistance when the dressing lead and the depth of dressing cut were increased, which caused a change in the grinding wheel surface condition. Furthermore, the influence of the difference in dressing conditions using the prismatic dresser on the ground surface roughness and grinding resistance can be quantitatively evaluated by using the dressing resistance.

Elastic grinding wheels have previously been adopted for the development of the mirror surface finishing method for concave spheres. In this study, new conductive elastic grinding wheels, to which electrolytic in-process dressing (ELID) can be applied, are developed; the aim of the study is to address the challenge of maintaining a constant removal rate for rubber bond wheels. When ELID grinding is performed using a non-diene (isobutane isoprene rubber, IIR)-based wheel, a larger removal amount is achieved, and a higher-quality surface is also achieved compared to a diene (acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber, NBR)-based wheel. In addition, to investigate the effect of grinding wheel bond hardness on the removal amount and ground shape accuracy, grinding wheels with various levels of hardness are prepared by controlling the amount of carbon black contained in them, and grinding experiments are conducted. Thus, a larger removal amount is achieved using a harder grinding wheel, but the roughness of the ground surfaces deteriorates. Therefore, in practice, it is necessary to select an appropriate grinding wheel that can achieve both productivity and surface quality. Finally, to obtain a high-quality mirror finish on a concave spherical surface, ELID grinding is performed on the workpieces as is done for spherical lens molds. Thus, high-quality mirror surfaces with roughness Ra < 10 nm were generated. When the work pieces are ground using a grinding wheel of the same radius, excessive removal occurs at the edge of the concave spherical profile, decreasing the form accuracy. Numerical simulation demonstrates that chamfering of the grinding wheel is effective for improving the shape accuracy. The results of this study are expected to contribute to automation and cost reduction in the mirror-finishing process for concave molds.

Optical surfaces are required to have high form accuracy and smoothness. The form accuracy must be below 50 nm. Form accuracy is currently on the order of several tens of nanometers or less; however, further improvement is required. To improve form accuracy, compensation grinding is performed based on form measurement results. However, when the form error is small, a small periodical waviness occurs on the ground surface, which is known as nano-topography. This waviness cannot be compensated for using conventional compensation methods because the nano-topography distributions are not reproducible. A previous study showed that grinding conditions affect the spatial frequency of nano-topography. Therefore, in this study, optimum grinding conditions are estimated from the view point of nano-topography distributions, and the grinding conditions are compensated to optimize these distributions.

In order to reduce the grinding surface roughness, it is necessary to optimize the grinding conditions; this requires clear understanding of the relationship between the grinding conditions and ground surface roughness. Therefore, various studies have been carried out over the decades on the ground surface roughness and have proposed statistical grinding theory to define the relationship between the grinding conditions and ground surface roughness. However, the statistical grinding theory does not consider a few grinding conditions such as abrasive grain shape and distribution of abrasive grain, which affect the ground surface roughness. In this study, we construct a statistical grinding theory that considers the effect of abrasive grain distribution and improves the accuracy of the theoretical analysis of the ground surface roughness.

Nickel-based heat-resistant alloys are widely used for fabricating the turbine blades in gas turbine engines. An increase in the number of such engines operated by air carriers will increase the demand for high-efficiency machining of nickel-based heat-resistant alloys. However, the high-efficiency grinding of nickel-based heat-resistant alloys is challenging because of their low thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity, high chemical activity, large work-hardening properties, and high-temperature strength. In this work, the authors propose a high-efficiency grinding technique that uses speed-stroke grinding of nickel-based heat-resistant alloys, and aim to clarify the optimum grinding conditions for the proposed grinding method. The workpiece material is CMSX4 used for the turbine blades. A Cubitron + WA grinding wheel and WA grinding wheel mounted on a linear motor-driven surface grind machines are used for grinding, and the grinding force, surface roughness, and grinding ratio are investigated with the removal rate maintained constant. Two types of grinding fluid are prepared: solution and soluble. From the experiments, it is found that wet grinding features a lower grinding force, smaller surface roughness, and higher grinding ratio when compared to dry-cut grinding. The improvement in the grinding ratio at high table speeds is significant, and it is found to be greater for the soluble-type fluid than for the solution-type fluid.

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) using a suede polishing pad is an essential fabrication process for glass substrates that require ultra-high planarization. However, the effect of surface asperities of the suede pad on its polishing characteristics is not completely understood because the structure of the suede pad in the thickness direction is not constant, and its surface asperities can easily change during the pad conditioning or marathon polishing processes. In addition, many previous studies have discussed the polishing mechanism using a suede pad; however, these studies used suede pads with a pore size of approximately 100 μm. This paper discusses the polishing characteristics of a suede pad with fine micrometer-sized pores by clarifying the relationships between the removal rate, friction coefficient, pore parameters, and roughness as the pad surface asperities. In this study, a series of marathon polishing tests were performed with and without conditioning. It was discovered that the removal rate was affected not only by the pore parameters but also by the surface roughness of the suede pad with fine pores. The relationship between the removal rate and the friction coefficient changed owing to the influence of pad conditioning, and this change is significant when the break-in conditioning time is short.

The surfaces of large austenitic stainless-steel sheets, which have side lengths of at least 1 m a sheet thickness of at least 6 mm, used for food tanks and sliding plates in seismic isolation devices, must be finished to a mirror surface. Polishing is performed to improve the surface quality of such sheets and dry machining is typically applied. The problems associated with dry machining are the exhaust heat of machining and treatment of chips. A transition to wet machining is required to solve these problems. In our laboratory, we have developed a wet polishing machine and researched the selection of grinding wheels to develop wet polishing technology for large stainless-steel sheets. In this study, to reduce tool cost and reuse resources, we attempted to manufacture a recycled grinding wheel using snippets of grinding wheel scraps. A polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aqueous solution was used as the bonding agent for the recycled grinding wheel to reduce environmental load. To overcome the ease of dissolution of PVA in water, we attempted to improve the water resistance of the PVA aqueous solution by incorporating an organic titanium compound. This is one of our efforts to contribute to sustainable development goals. The results are summarized below. (1) A recycled grinding wheel was fabricated by kneading crushed pieces of grinding wheel scrap with a bonding agent. (2) The maintenance of the shape of the recycled grinding wheel was controlled by the concentration of the bonding agent. (3) The recycled grinding wheel with a PVA bonding agent was vulnerable to water. In contrast, the recycled grinding wheel to which the organic titanium compound was added exhibited improved water resistance. (4) The polishing of stainless-steel sheets using the plain PVA recycled wheel was relatively ineffective, but polishing using the recycled wheel with the titanium additive was comparable to polishing with a new grinding wheel.

This study investigates the development of an ultrasonic vibration-assisted magnetic compound fluid (MCF) polishing technology for final polishing. The fabrication of an experimental apparatus entails an ultrasonic polishing unit, and the experimental investigation of its performance in surface polishing is described. In addition, ultrasonic vibration-assisted MCF polishing under different applied methods of ultrasonic vibration is studied. The experimental results indicate that applying ultrasonic vibration to the workpiece improves the surface roughness and material removal rate when the ultrasonic vibrations are changed. In addition, across the range of polishing conditions employed in this study, the precision surface roughness and high material removal rate can be easily obtained on the acrylic plate by applying an elliptical vibration to the ultrasonic vibration.

Tribological properties such as lubrication, friction, and wear resistance greatly affect machine operation efficiency, performance, and service life. Surface texturing methods such as scraping can be used to improve these properties. Scraping creates many small depressions on the target surface. These depressions, which are evenly distributed, function as oil holes and thus improve lubrication performance. This paper describes a surface texturing technique based on ultrasonic vibration-assisted turning (UVAT) that simultaneously improves tribological properties and machinability. In UVAT, the cutting tool is oscillated mainly in the principal direction. Vibration in the radial direction, which is induced by Poisson deformation, periodically digs up or pushes the workpiece surface in the radial direction, creating a textured surface. A surface subjected to UVAT has periodic depressions along the workpiece rotation direction. The texturing rate of UVAT is up to 6700 mm²/min, which is higher than that of manual scraping. To evaluate the tribological performance of a surface textured by UVAT, the friction coefficient between a stainless steel pin and the surface was measured under oil dipping conditions. The results of friction experiments show that the friction coefficient of the UVAT-treated surface and its fluctuation were lower than those of a conventional turned surface. The UVAT-treated surface had stable friction properties.

We propose ultrasonic rotary cutting, in which ultrasonic vibrations are imparted to a rotating cemented carbide cylindrical tool to cut hardened steel to reduce the cutting resistance and improve the properties of the machined surface, and investigate the machining characteristics. Machining experiments were conducted under dry and wet conditions to verify the effects of the ultrasonic vibrations. The surface produced via ultrasonic rotary cutting was intermittently machined, which is characteristic of ultrasonic cutting. In dry machining, the cutting resistance was reduced by approximately 20%, and the surface roughness of the machined surface was reduced by approximately 30% when the cutting speed was below the critical speed. We also demonstrated that the surface roughness was improved by ultrasonic vibrations when the cutting speed was equal to or above the critical speed. A similar tendency was observed in wet machining with longer cutting lengths. We then applied ultrasonic rotary cutting to machine a straight R groove in hardened steel and showed that the cutting resistance was reduced, and the tool engagement was improved.

A mirror-like reflecting surface is an important characteristic in many industrial metallic parts. Polishing is done to form a mirror surface on metals. However, the effect of the grain size of metals on surface roughness through polishing processes is not clear. Specifically, mirror surface formation of ultrafine grained materials is still unknown. Ultrafine grained steels and coarse grained steels with 0.02, 0.10, and 0.60 wt% carbon contents were prepared by warm caliber rolling and annealing. Average grain sizes were 1–2 μm and 4–40 μm. The changes in surface roughness, Sa, were measured with an atomic force microscope (AFM) via eight polishing steps, using emery papers of type #600, #1000, #1500, #2000, #2500, #4000, and free abrasive grains of 3 μm and 1 μm diamond. As the polishing process progressed, the surface unevenness was removed and the surface roughness, Sa, decreased in all steels. The differences of Sa at each polishing step were analyzed from the point of carbon content, Vickers hardness, and grain size. Carbon contents and Vickers hardness have little effect on Sa. However, grain size has a considerable effect on Sa in all steels. Ultrafine grained steels have smaller Sa in all polishing steps in all steels. This is because ultrafine grained steels have very small work hardening rate. After final polishing, Sa is 2.5–3.6 nm in coarse grained steels and 2.0–2.6 nm in ultrafine grained steels. To obtain a mirror surface with smaller Sa, grain size control is important.

This paper presents a simulation method for the power consumption of servo motors, focusing on the influence of vibrations on the motor efficiency. An apparatus consisting of two servo motors connected through a coupling was specifically designed for this study. The efficiency of the servo motor was experimentally investigated for several torque vibration levels imposed through the selection of the control parameters, and the torque vibration level was quantified through the standard deviation of the torque signal. The efficiency map characteristics for each torque oscillating level were determined. A numerical model of the apparatus clarifying the dependency of the coupling characteristics on the oscillating torque was developed, and the torque oscillation of the system was simulated. A model based on the measured motor efficiency maps and the torque oscillation level was developed to simulate the motor efficiency under several torque vibrating conditions. Finally, the power consumption of the motor was simulated based on the simulated efficiency and mechanical power. A balance of input, output, and loss powers was presented, and the experimental measurements were compared with the simulation results. The power consumption of the motor increased when the torque oscillated owing to vibrations, and the loss of power due to both oscillations and the loss of motor efficiency was quantified.