A study on microgrinding of brittle and difficult-to-cut glasses using on-machine fabricated poly crystalline diamond (PCD) tool

Present study aims to investigate the feasibility of microgrinding difficult-to-machine glass materials with Poly Crystalline Diamond (PCD) tool, which is fabricated on-machine using micro-electrodischarge machining (micro-EDM). A detailed experimental investigation on the mechanism of the process including the effect of micro-EDM machining conditions on tool surface and the effect of grinding parameters on microgrinding performance are presented. In this context, a comparative study on the microgrinding performance of three glass materials (BK7, Lithosil and N-SF14) using on-machine fabricated PCD tool was carried out. It was found that during tool fabrication using micro-EDM process, higher discharge energy generates rougher surface and larger craters on the tool, which can provide higher material removal rate (MRR) during grinding but results in poorer surface finish on glass surface. In addition to micro-EDM conditions of tool fabrication, the roughness of the ground glass surface depends greatly on grinding parameters such as depth of cut, feed rate and tool rotational speed. The surface roughness increases with increasing axial depth of cut and feed rate, whereas higher rotational speed was found to improve the surface finish. Among three types of glass materials, BK7 glass was found to provide better performance in terms of the achieved surface finish and cutting force analysis. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.