Finishing of hardened boreholes:: Grinding or hard cutting?

The finishing processes of parts have been carried out mainly by abrasive grinding techniques. Grinding is a theoretically well-elaborated and widespread machining process. That is why its replacement by another metal removal technique, hard cutting, requires very careful examination. In this article, the possibilities are outlined for finishing internal cylindrical surfaces of hardened steels (i.e., boreholes, by employing hard cutting instead of grinding). The process characteristics, the surface quality, and some economic and ecological features of the process are compared theoretically and experimentally, and discussed.