Analytical Prediction of Subsurface Damages and Surface Quality in Vibration-Assisted Polishing Process of Silicon Carbide Ceramics

Abstract

Subsurface damages and surface roughness are two significant parameters which determine the performance of silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics. Subsurface damages (SSD) induced by conventional polishing could seriously affect the service life of the workpiece. To address this problem, vibration-assisted polishing (VAP) was developed to machine hard and brittle materials, because the vibration-assisted machine (VAM) can increase the critical cutting depth to improve the surface integrity of materials. In this paper, a two-dimensional (2D) VAM system is used to polish SiC ceramics. Moreover, a theoretical SSD model is constructed to predict the SSD. Furthermore, finite element simulation (FEM) is adopted to analyze the effects of different VAP parameters on SSD. Finally, a series of scratches and VAP experiments are conducted on the independent precision polishing machine to investigate the effects of polishing parameters on brittle–ductile transition and SSD.

Microwave Frequency Offset Induced by Subsurface Damage in Abrasive-Machined Semiconductor Ceramic Waveguide

“…SSD and its ability to reduce the optical [26][27][28], mechanical [29,30], piezoelectric [31], and tribological [32,33] performance of ceramics or even lead to component breakage has been reported and verified. Therefore, SSD in ceramics is a hot research topic, and has been studied via experimental investigation [34], modeling and prediction [35][36][37], and detection and imaging [38,39]. Furthermore, studies have investigated the possible reduction in SSD through precision-machining methods [40][41][42][43][44].…”