Experimental study on near-polished ultra-precision grinding of fused glass with the assistant of pure CeO2 atomizing liquid

It is easy to obtain the near-polished grinding surface using fine-size grain diamond wheel (such as #2000, grain size 6.5 μm) and a small grinding depth. However, a relatively big-size wheel (such as #600, grain size 24 μm) is difficult to accomplish the near-polished grinding. Hence, this paper proposes a novel axis-feed grinding approach with the assistant of pure CeO2 atomizing liquid to obtain the near-polished grinding roughness using a relatively big-size grain diamond wheel and a large grinding depth. Firstly, the brittle-ductile axis-feed grinding modes and the roughness prediction model are briefly introduced. Secondly, the #600 diamond wheel is employed to perform the experiments of grinding fused glass with the proposed technology. Then, the brittle-ductile axis-feed grinding modes, the softened speed and softened depth of fused glass by the effectivity of pure CeO2 atomizing liquid, and the grinding roughness obtained with different feed speeds and grinding depths are investigated. It is shown that the ultra-precision grinding of fused glass can be realized using a relatively big-size grain diamond wheel and a large grinding depth, and the resulting morphology and roughness are mainly influenced by the feed speed. There exists the combined action of softening and polishing caused by pure CeO2 atomizing liquid. The feed speed that the ductile grinding happens increases about 6.57 times due to the increase of the brittle-ductile transition depth from 21 to 138 nm caused by the softened effect. The mean grinding roughness can reach 1.05 nm at the feed speed of 1 mm/min and the grinding depth of 5–20 μm.