Laser-assisted grinding of reaction-bonded SiC

Abstract

The article presents the development of a novel laser-assisted grinding (LAG) process to reduce surface roughness and subsurface damage in grinding reaction-bonded silicon carbide (RB-SiC). A thermal control approach is proposed to facilitate the process development, in which a two-temperature model (TTM) is applied to control the required laser power to thermal softening of RB-SiC prior to the grinding operation without melting the workpiece or leaving undesirable microstructural alteration. Fourier’s law is adopted to obtain the thermal gradient for verification. An experimental comparison of conventional grinding and LAG shows significant reduction of machined surface roughness (37%–40%) and depth of subsurface damage layer (22%–50.6%) using the thermal control approach under the same grinding conditions. It also shows high specific grinding energy 1.5 times that in conventional grinding at the same depth of cut, which accounts for the reduction of subsurface damage as it provides enough energy to promote ductile-regime material removal.

Experimental investigation on stir casting of a metal matrix composite material

“…Al7075 + SiC metal matrix composite (MMC) has been developed in which Al is a matrix with SiC particulates as reinforcements. SiC is a widely used material due to its inertness and superior mechanical properties 1 . It has more thermal conductivity and essentially utilized as a part of microelectronics as a substrate for high-density multichip modules and power semiconductor gadgets.…”