Experimental and numerical investigation on the interference of diamond grains in double-grain grinding silicon carbide ceramics

Abstract Aiming at the unclear knowledge of the effect of the axial grain separation distance ΔZv on the interference, the double diamond grains grinding tests and finite element (FE) simulations were carried out to understand the interference of diamond grains generated in SiC grinding process. A double-grains grinding device with rotational holder was first developed, which could adjust ΔZv conveniently. The experimental results demonstrate that the normal grinding force is more sensitive than the tangential grinding force to ΔZv at agmax = 0.3 and 1 μm. The grinding forces and cross-section profiles of the grinding grooves show the same trend to increase initially and then decline with the expansion of ΔZv. The critical value of ΔZv is determined at 309 μm based on the variations of grinding forces and cross-section profiles in the grinding experiments. The surface morphologies and surface/subsurface Von Mises stress fields were also analyzed with a 3D FE model. The interference arising from adjacent diamond grains results in the severity of the stress field in the central region of the two grooves. A critical ΔZv between adjacent rows is determined at 300 μm when the severity of the overlap stress field reaches the maximum value, which coincides well with the experimental results.