Study on the effect of ultrasonic vibration-assisted polishing on the surface properties of alumina ceramic

Due to the excellent biocompatibility and chemical durability, alumina ceramics are widely used in biomedical fields such as dentistry. Meanwhile, the high hardness and brittleness of the alumina ceramic causes difficulties in ensuring the processing quality of conventional machining methods. Ultrasonic vibration-assisted polishing (UVAP) can effectively improve the surface quality of hard and brittle materials as a novel machining method. The surface properties of the alumina ceramic for different ultrasonic amplitudes are obtained in this study. The evaluation of the surface properties includes microscopic topography, frictional property, surface hardness, microscopic strain, and surface roughness. In addition, a surface roughness model of the alumina ceramic is built based on the UVAP machining mechanism. The model considers the effect of different types of abrasive particles (free and fixed abrasive particles) on the material removal mechanism. The experimental results show that the errors of the predicted model are less than 20%. This work will provide some ideas for the subsequent UVAP processing.