3.1 Grinding force
Figure 2 shows the change trends of the grinding forces of zirconia ceramics. The diagram shows that the grinding forces of zirconia ceramics increase with increasing grinding depth under the same precompressive stress and increase with increasing precompressive stress under the same grinding depth. A comparison of the grinding forces of zirconia ceramics under two lubrication modes shows that the grinding force of CA–MQL is smaller than that of WET when the grinding depth is 10 µm at 0 MPa. When the precompressive stresses increase to 200 MPa and 400 MPa, the grinding forces of CA–MQL products gradually approach those of WET products at this grinding depth. When the grinding depth increases to 30 µm, the grinding forces of CA–MQL products are greater than those of WET products. The gap in the grinding force increases with increasing precompressive stress. When the grinding depth increases to 50 µm, the grinding force after using CA–MQL begins to be significantly greater than the grinding force after using WET, and the grinding forces of the two lubrication methods exhibit large gaps. This phenomenon occurs due to the grinding depth in the process of increasing the grinding area. The required lubricating fluid amount is greater under this condition because the CA–MQL fluid flow is low; the lubricating fluid entering the grinding zone when the grinding depth is large is not sufficient for achieving the best lubrication and cooling effects, resulting in a decrease in the CA–MQL efficiency. After applying precompressive stress, the grinding force begins to increase under the same grinding parameters. This phenomenon occurs because the precompressive stress inhibits the grinding crack propagation of zirconia ceramics, making material removal more difficult; these findings result in the grinding force under precompressive stress being greater than the grinding force without precompressive stress. The changes in the grinding forces under the WET and CA–MQL lubrication modes show that at 0 MPa, when the grinding depth is 10 µm, the anti-wear effect of CA–MQL is more obvious than that of WET. When the grinding depth increases to 30 µm, the lubrication effect becomes weaker than that of WET. The lubrication effect of CA–MQL is better than that of WET during precision grinding.
3.2 Surface morphology
Figure 3 shows the surface morphologies of zirconia ceramics under CA–MQL and WET at 0 MPa. Figure 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d show the surface topographies of CA–MQL grinding without precompressive stress, and Fig. 3(e), (f), (g) and (h) show the surface topographies of WET grinding without precompressive stress. The materials of the CA–MQL grinding surfaces at 10-µm, 20 µm, 30 µm and 50 µm grinding depths undergo plastic removal, the plastic grooves are obvious, the surface grains are less broken, and the coatings are thinner than those of the materials of the WET grinding surfaces. This phenomenon occurs because CA–MQL plays a key role in reducing wear during the grinding process. High-pressure air flow discharges the debris, abrasive particles and broken grains in the grinding core area from the workpiece surface in a timely manner, which greatly reduces the coating degree of the workpiece surface. However, under the condition of WET, with the increasing grinding depth, it is not difficult to find that the grinding groove becomes increasingly unclear. When the grinding depths reach 30 µm and 50 µm, the groove is difficult to find and is replaced by a large amount of grain crushing and brittle deformation. This phenomenon occurs because in the grinding process, the liquid flow rate of WET is relatively slow and the viscosity coefficient of the lubricating fluid is large; although the lubricating fluid enters the core area of grinding, it cannot discharge the grinding debris, abrasive particles or crushed grains from the surface of the workpiece in time. With increasing grinding depth, the material removal volume increases, the corresponding grain crushing increases, and the material fails to discharge in time. Therefore, a serious surface coating is produced, which greatly reduces the surface quality.
Figure 4 shows the grinding cross section under WET conditions when the precompressive stress is 0 MPa. Figure 4a shows the grinding cross section at a grinding depth of 10 µm. The grinding parameters under the damaged layer are approximately 3 µm because the grinding depth is shallow, the grinding force is relatively low, the less material removal occurs, the affected surface is shallow, the damaged layer thickness is relatively small, and the surface quality impact is relatively light. Figure 4b shows the grinding section when the grinding depth is 20 µm. Under this grinding parameter, the thickness of the damaged layer reaches approximately 7 µm. Compared with the damaged layer shown in Fig. 4a, the damaged layer is deeper, but it is not particularly obvious from Fig. 3e and Fig. 3f. Figure 4c shows the grinding cross section when the grinding depth is 30 µm. At this time, the thickness of the damaged layer reaches 17–20 µm, the damaged layer is obviously thickened, and it is difficult to see the groove marks from the grinding surface. Figure 4d shows the grinding cross section when the grinding depth reaches 50 µm. At this time, the thickness of the damaged layer reaches 24 ~ 28 µm. With the increase in the grinding depth, when the grinding depths reach 30 µm and 50 µm, due to the material removal rate increasing greatly, it is difficult for WET technology to discharge the wear debris in time, resulting in many broken grains remaining on the grinding surface; additionally, the thickness of the broken layer is not uniform, which is caused by the nonuniformity when the grinding debris is discharged.
Figure 5 shows the grinding surfaces when the grinding depth is 10 µm under different precompressive stresses. When the grinding depth is low, with the increase in precompressive stress, the densities of plastic grooves on the grinding surface obviously gradually increase. Due to the existence of precompressive stress, the ductility domain of ceramic material processing increases, the toughness of the material increases to a certain extent, and the actual cutting depth of the material decreases. The development of internal cracks in ceramic materials during processing is inhibited to a certain extent, reducing the processing damage. A certain coating area remains on the grinding surface in Fig. 5a, while the coating area in Fig. 5c significantly decreases, which is replaced by more obvious material plastic flow and dense plastic grooves. From Fig. 5a to Fig. 5c, the grain damage levels on the surfaces of zirconia ceramics significantly decrease with increasing precompressive stress, and the grinding surface wear marks are clear. A combination of appropriate precompressive stresses and CA–MQL technology effectively improve the grinding surface quality.
Figure 6 shows the surface roughnesses of zirconia ceramics when the precompressive stresses are 0 MPa and 400 MPa under two different lubrication modes. Under the same grinding parameters, the surface roughness increases with increasing grinding depth, which is caused by the increase in the grinding depth leading to an increase in the grinding temperature and the failure of the timely discharge of grinding debris. When the precompressive stress is 400 MPa, both lubrication methods significantly reduce the surface roughness. In particular, under this condition, the surface roughness of CA–MQL exhibits the largest decrease compared with that of WET lubrication without precompressive stress, and the maximum decrease is 17.1%. This phenomenon occurs because the precompressive stress reduces the surface grain breakage and surface roughness values of zirconia ceramics.
The surface morphology characteristics of zirconia ceramics with two lubrication methods under different precompressive stresses show that the grinding surfaces of CA–MQL products are always better than those of WET products under the same grinding parameters. Combined with the grinding force, it is seen that when the grinding depth increases to 30 µm, the grinding forces of zirconia ceramic products are higher than those of WET products when CA–MQL is used. However, Fig. 2 shows that although the grinding force increases, the surface morphology of CA–MQL products remain better than those of WET products. This phenomenon occurs because the high-pressure cold air jets the lubricating oil into the grinding zone in the grinding process and takes the debris out of the grinding zone in a timely manner to reduce the coating effect to achieve a better grinding effect, as shown in Fig. 8.
3.3 Surface residual stress
The residual stress of the zirconia ceramic surface to be machined is -352.7 MPa (compressive stress).
Figure 7a and Fig. 7b show the variation trends of the surface residual stresses of zirconia ceramics after using WET and CA–MQL, respectively. Figure 7c shows a comparison of grinding surface residual stresses of zirconia ceramics under two different lubrication conditions and different precompressive stresses. Figure 7a and Fig. 7b show that the relationship between the variation amplitude of the surface residual stress and the grinding depth of zirconia ceramics shows a trend of first decreasing and then increasing; with increasing precompressive stress, the variation amplitude of the residual stress decreases. This phenomenon occurs because when the grinding depth is 10 µm, the removal processes of zirconia ceramics are mainly plowing and plastic removal, which reduces the residual compressive stress. When the grinding depth increases to 30 µm, the removal mechanism of zirconia ceramics begins to change from plastic removal to brittle removal. Plastic removal and brittle removal mix, reaching an optimal value of residual compressive stress on the grinding depth so that the amplitude of residual compressive stress change reaches a minimum. When the grinding depth reaches 50 µm, although the brittle removal becomes more obvious, due to the higher grinding depth, the grinding force and temperature significantly increase, leading to more residual tensile stresses on the grinding surface; this phenomenon leads to an increase in the residual compressive stress. With increasing grinding depth from 10 µm to 30 µm and 50 µm, the amplitude of the residual compressive stress first decreases and then increases. Figure 8c shows that the change amplitude of the residual compressive stress decreases with increasing precompressive stress. As the precompressive stresses increase to 200 MPa and 400 MPa, the increase in the precompressive stress leads to a transformation of the plastic removal mechanism into a brittle removal mechanism. The phenomenon becomes more obvious; thus, the change in the residual compressive stress is low. From a comparison of lubrication methods, the same law as the previous grinding force is found. At low grinding depths, the surface residual stress generated by CA–MQL is better than that of WET under precompressive stresses of 0 MPa, 200 MPa and 400 MPa. This phenomenon occurs because high-pressure cold air helps nanoparticles enter the grinding zone to reduce the friction effect. With increasing grinding depth, the lubrication and cooling of CA–MQL are gradually lower than those of WET; thus, the residual compressive stress of the WET surface is lower than that of CA–MQL, which is the same as the grinding force. Therefore, the superiority of CA–MQL in precision grinding is found.