Ductile-brittle transition behavior in the ultrasonic vibration-assisted internal grinding of silicon carbide ceramics

Silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics play a key role in various engineering applications due to their desirable properties, however, they are typical hard-brittle materials and famous for their poor machinability. Ultrasonic-assisted grinding, a processing method hybridizing the conventional grinding and ultrasonic vibration (UV) machining, is employed as the one applicable machining method for hard-brittle materials. This study focuses on internal grinding of SiC ceramics with the assistance of the UV, and its ductile-brittle transition behavior in the grinding process were investigated experimentally. Following the processing principal of internal grinding and UV machining (i.e., UV-assisted internal grinding, UVAIG), the UVAIG experiment rig were constructed. Conventional internal grinding (CIG) tests, i.e., internal grinding without UV, were also performed on the constructed rig for comparison. In addition, the grinding force and the grinding chips variation behavior with the UV amplitude were also investigated to explore the ductile-brittle transition mechanism in UVAIG. The experiment results evidence that (1) ductile mode grinding is easily achieved in UVAIG, and the critical depth of the cut is deeper in UVAIG than that in CIG, i.e., 0.072 μm in CIG and 0.093 μm in UVAIG; (2) increasing of the critical depth of cut in UVAIG is likely owing to the lower grinding force in UVAIG than that in CIG; and (3) the ultrasonic vibration acted on the axis of the grinding wheel helps in the removal of material on the work-surface, but decreases the grinding energy in the ductile-brittle transition.