Elliptical Ultrasonic Assisted Grinding (EUAG) of Monocrystal Sapphire – Wear Behaviors of Resin Bond Diamond Wheel

Abstract

This paper describes the wear behaviors of a resin bond diamond wheel in elliptical ultrasonic assisted grinding (EUAG) of monocrystal sapphire. The EUAG is a new grinding method proposed by the present authors in which an elliptical ultrasonic vibration is imposed on the workpiece by using an elliptical ultrasonic vibrator. In our previous work, an experimental apparatus mainly composed of the vibrator was produced and grinding experiments were conducted involving sapphire workpiece. In this paper, further investigations focusing on the wear behaviors of resin bond diamond wheel in EUAG of sapphire were carried out experimentally. The obtained results showed that: (1) the wheel wear process can be divided to three regions according to the variation trend of grinding forces, i.e., an initial region, a steady region, and a deteriorated region; (2) in the initial and steady regions, the grinding forces and the ratio of the normal grinding force to the tangential grinding force in EUAG are much smaller than that in conventional grinding (CG), but in deteriorated region, the grinding forces in EUAG are increased significantly up to be larger than that in CG whereas the grinding forces ratio has few difference between those in EUAG and CG; (3) in all the regions, the work-surface in EUAG is much smoother than that in CG whereas the wheel wear has little influence on the work-surface roughness; (4) the wheel wear in CG is mainly caused by the attrition wear and the macro-fracture and pullout of abrasive grains, while in EUAG by the micro-fracture and cleavage of abrasive grains.