A Review of Partial Ductile Mode Machining for Brittle Materials

There is an increased trend in the usage of brittle materials for industrial applications. Most of these applications demand for a precise and accurate finishing which calls for new machining methods that can give a very good surface finish with proper control over surface integrity. These properties are significantly influenced by the material removal during machining. The mode of material removal during machining for brittle and ductile materials is completely different. Ductile materials plastically deform a significant amount before fracture when deformed in bulk. But in brittle materials there is no plastic deformation before fracture and the material removal is achieved by crack propagation. This results in poor surface finish and loss of surface integrity. To overcome these, a new mode of machining is developed. The application for this machining mode can be highly useful while machining glass, metallic carbides and nitrides etc. In this study, an overview of ductile mode machining mechanism in brittle materials with reference to grinding operation is presented. (paper)