Ductile regime finish machining - A review

Many of today's products require high precision and operate in extreme environments. To meet these demands, new types of high-performance materials and machining techniques have been developed. The use of these machining techniques, enables these materials to achieve nanometric tolerances. Ceramics are one group of such materials, which can be used in high-performance applications because of their high stiffness, dimensional and temperature stability and resistance to chemical environments. The brittleness of these materials poses problems during machining, but the demand for precision parts made of these materials are increasing at a first rate. Experiments have shown that plastic flow can occur in ceramic materials, so they can be ductile machined However, much needs to be determined in respect of the cutting conditions to enable this ductile behaviour to be successfully maintained throughout the machining processes such as turning of grinding.