Novel Kinematics for Cylindrical Grinding of Brittle Materials

Brittle materials are characterised by grinding direction related strength anisotropy attributed to the dual population of grinding induced microcracks. Surface grinding operations are therefore implemented such that the grinding lay is along the direction of maximum tensile stress in the component, which corresponds to minimal strength degradation. The kinematic configuration of conventional machine tools inherently precludes such an approach in cylindrical traverse grinding. To this end, the paper presents aspects of an innovative material-adapted kinematic variant, which corresponds to an enhancement of characteristic flexural strength of about 30% in comparison to conventionally ground quartz samples.