Depth-of-cut errors in ELID surface grinding of zirconia-based ceramics

Based on the analysis of a surface grinding system and the material removal mechanism, a mathematic model has been proposed to predict the accumulated error between the total set depth-of-cut (DoC) and the total actual depth-of-cut (ADoC) in multi-pass surface grinding of zirconia-based ceramic materials. Design of Experiments (DoE) approach has been implemented to carry out experiments. The influence of the set DoC of each grinding pass, the total set DoC, and the grinding wheel velocity on the accumulated errors in ADoC has been investigated in detail in surface grinding of zirconia-based ceramics both with electrolysis in-process dressing (ELID) and without ELID. It has been observed that the accumulated DoC errors increase faster in the first few passes and gradually reach a saturation after a certain total DoCs (about 8-10 grinding passes) and a higher step DoC leads to a faster (fewer passes) saturation of the accumulated DoC errors. Compared to grinding without ELID, it has been found that ELID-grinding is characterized with better process stability and ELID offers positive effects on material removal rate (MRR), especially in case of removing large volume of material with the same grinding parameters.