The Wear Characteristics of a Wire Tool in the Microgrooving of Ceramics

A wire tool having electrodeposited diamond grains is frequently used for machining hard and brittle materials such as silicon ingots, magnetic materials, ceramics, and sapphires. This study aims to examine the wear characteristics of the tool during the microgrooving of ceramics. We conducted microgrooving experiments for alumina ceramics. The results indicate that the grooving time and the machining distance influence the groove depth. However, as the damage in a wire tool progresses, the groove depth does not depend on the machining distance. A fast relative velocity leads to serious damage in the wire tool even when the machining time is short. In the case of wet grooving, the damage to the wire tool was smaller than that in the case of dry grooving.