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.