Ductile and brittle mode grinding of fused silica

There is a demand for high-efficiency and high surface integrity grinding of fused silica. Ductile grinding is an ideal method for producing a mirror finished surface on hard and brittle materials to significantly decrease polishing time. However, the fused silica is still difficult to ductile grind because of its high brittleness. A creep feed taper grinding method was applied to investigate the relationship between maximum grit depth of cut and surface integrity of fused silica. Ductile mode grinding was achieved on fused silica. When the depth of cut exceeds the critical wheel depth of cut, the surface suddenly changes from the ductile mode to the brittle mode. At the same ratio of wheel speed and table speed, the critical wheel depth of cut is noticeably increased by increasing the wheel speed which caused an increase in the temperature at the interface of grains and workpiece. The depth of subsurface damage (SSD) was investigated by polishing the ground surface. The experiment results show that the depth of SSD is deepest in transition mode and stables in brittle mode.