The effect of cryogenic cooling on surface topography in the PEEK grinding process

Due to the increasing applicant of special polymers in industries, especially in the medical and aerospace industries, it is necessary to study and investigate the production and machining of these materials. Polyether ether ketone is a heat resistant polymer that is used in the medical industry nowadays. Grinding is one of the important machining processes of this material. Using conventional lubricants and cooling liquids is not optimal in machining of PEEK, because grinded workpiece must be cleaned several steps before use. In this paper, cryogenic cooling technology, as one of the newly emerging cooling systems in the field of machining that have a very high ability, does not have a negative environmental impact, and greatly reduces need to clean machining parts, has been used for cooling of the machining zone. One of the important issues of machining output parameters is surface integrity. Surface Integrity and roughness have a high importance in the performance of the finished product and is an important parameter for investigation the machinability. Comparison of the results of using compressed air and cryogenic cooling on surface roughness and surface conditions indicate the significant effect of cryogenic cooling on the output of this study