The formation mechanism and influencing factors of the sawed surface of ZTA nanocomposite ceramics in diamond wire sawing

Abstract

Zirconia Toughened Alumina (ZTA) nanocomposite ceramics are widely used in many fields such as industrial and medical applications due to the excellent mechanical properties. Diamond wire saw technology has shown great potential in cutting ZTA ceramics. This paper conducted experiments on diamond wire sawing of ZTA ceramics to analyze the effects of wire speed and feed speed on surface morphology, surface roughness, and the peak-to-valley (PV) value of saw marks. An image processing method was used to investigate the variation of the number and area of these depressions with changing of processing parameters. It was shown that diamond wire saw machining of ZTA ceramics resulted in material removal mainly by brittle fracture, and that the processing parameters had a significant effect on surface quality. The surface roughness improved as the wire speed increases from 1000 m/min to 1400 m/min and the feed speed decreases from 0.3 mm/min to 0.1 mm/min, while the PV increased with both. Large depressions were commonly observed on the sawn surface, with both their number and area increasing as wire speed decreased and feed speed increased. As the ratio of feed speed to wire speed increased, the number and area of depressions generally showed an increasing trend, the variation was influenced by multiple factors, not just the speed ratio. The results provide experimental reference and theoretical support for the optimization of diamond wire saw cutting processes for ZTA ceramics.