The success of structural ceramics in most applications depends not only on the materials properties and component design, but also the quality of machined products. One factor usually mentioned as a barrier to the wide use of ceramics is the lack of reliability of ceramic components, because the variability on the mechanical strength caused by defects that can be impaired in the grinding process. The grinding of ceramics, as much as with steel grinding is performed generally with excess of cutting fluids (coolants). The use of coolants results in serious ecological, physiological and economic issues. Since last decade the public opinion, the market, the laws and regulations have pushed the industries to consider the environmental risks in the manufacturing process. Then, in order to evaluate alternatives to the conventional method of cooling and lubrication, it was studied the viability of the optimized technique, where the cutting fluid is applied to the same peripherical speed of the wheel, penetrating in the cutting zone with less turbulence. Also, it was verified the technique of Minimum Quantity of Lubricant (MQL), where a large amount of cutting fluid is replaced by an air compressed flow containing a small quantity of lubricant. The methods were compared through performance analysis of cutting forces, roughness and wheel (G ratio). As a conclusion is that MQL is not viable in ceramics grinding with the working conditions proposed. The results obtained with optimized technique are insufficient to state this technique presents better roughness and G-ratio values when compared to conventional method.
grinding; ceramic; cooling; minimum quantity of lubrication (MQL)
