Study of the effect of lubricant type and tool (grinding wheel) material on the performance of minimum quantity lubrication in grinding of advanced ceramics

Advanced ceramics are a group of materials that have been used in many industries due to their properties such as high temperature stability, high strength, high abrasion resistance and high corrosion resistance. Grinding process is one of the most important and most commonly used techniques for machining and polishing of ceramics. However, poor grindability, high surface defects in the workpiece due to the brittleness of ceramics and the high grinding forces, high wear rate of diamond wheel (tool), high costs due to the use of cutting fluid, low cutting productivity (low production rate), are of the problems of ceramics grinding. The minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) new technique is one of the methods recently introduced in machining processes aimed at improving lubrication performance of cutting fluids, reducing fluid consumption and promoting the use of low-hazard and environmentally friendly fluids. In this study, the minimum quantity lubrication technique was used in the grinding process of zirconia ceramic in order to investigate its effects on the grindability of ceramics. Also, since the type of lubricant and grinding wheel can affect the performance of minimum quantity lubrication in this process, the type of lubricant and diamond wheel were used as variables in the experiments. The grinding forces, surface roughness and surface texture of the grinded samples have been evaluated. The results show that under the minimum quantity lubrication conditions, applying the appropriate type of lubricant and grinding wheel can significantly affect the grindability of zirconia ceramic.