Optimization of Grinding partially stabilized zirconia (PSZ) for dental Implant application

Titanium is currently widely used as dental implant, but it may cause allergic problems. For this reason, the use of partially stabilized zirconia (PSZ) in dental applications has increased in recent years. Because of extreme hardness and brittleness of ceramic (PSZ) and in order to achieve dimensional and geometrical accuracy, grinding is necessary. In this research, a comprehensive study was carried out to investigate the effect of the grinding parameters of PSZ on surface roughness, grinding cost and PSZ phase transformation. It was observed that, increasing both depth of cut and feed rate results in an increase on tetragonal to monoclinic phase transformation. It was also observed that using a metal bond grinding wheel with higher concentration and larger abrasive size results in lower grinding cost. It was observed that using resin bond grinding wheels instead of metal bond grinding wheels, results in average 8% lower surface roughness. However, an increase in grinding wheel concentration results in a decrease in the surface roughness. Response surface method (RSM) was used to find an optimum condition and create a mathematical model between inputs and outputs and it was shown that the average R-square of the model was more than 0.90. PSZ microstructure and surface roughness could be controlled by controlling the grinding parameters. Using a metal bond grinding wheel with higher concentration and larger abrasive size results in lower grinding cost.