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Motivated by the prevailing assisted techniques in wheel grinding of brittle and hard materials, an attempt is made in this paper to identify the feasibility of robot-assisted abrasive belt grinding of zirconia ceramics. Owing to the flexible machining system, the challenge of this attempt resides in achieving the required profile accuracy and surface quality, in which the evolution of grinding-induced micro-cracks is prioritized. The single-grit scratching simulation based on an improved chip-thickness model that incorporates elastic modules of tool-workpiece engagement is employed to explore the damage mechanism in terms of the initiation, propagation and suppression of micro-cracks. The simulation results demonstrate that the critical depth of cut for brittle-to-ductile transition of zirconia ceramics is determined as 0.42 μm according to the tentative maximum undeformed chip thickness (UCT) values. In ductile-regime grinding, the zirconia surface morphologies are independent of the abrasive particle velocity. Lateral cracks begin to initiate especially when the maximum UCT exceeds 0.42 μm, and the brittle removal becomes dominant. In brittle-regime grinding, high abrasive particle velocity could help substantially enhance the workpiece surface integrity by suppressing the median/radial cracks that initiate once the maximum UCT approaches 0.8 μm. Experiment concerning the force-controlled robotic belt grinding of zirconia ceramics is conducted to verify the simulation results via the microscope observation of ground surface morphologies. The findings are likely to provide experimental evidence on the feasibility of belt grinding of brittle and hard materials with a flexible industrial robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tentative work from the perspective of cutting forces is carried out in this paper to analyse and assess the robotic belt grinding mechanisms. Firstly, a microscopic scale of cutting force model consisting of sliding, ploughing and cutting components is introduced, then the effects of force components on the machined surface roughness are explored based on the force control experiments, and finally a typical case on the robotic belt grinding of aero-engine blade with constant contact force is conducted to validate the practicality and effectiveness of force control. The results reveal two significant findings with respect to the high sliding force percentage and low cutting efficiency in comparison with the robotic belt grinding without force control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]