In the machining of engineering parts, together with the demand for functional parts, the question of the most cost effective production sequence is the prime interest. The portion of grinding cost is the most dominant in the overall machining cos. For the purpose of reduction of machining cost through making improvement grinding process, the creep feed grinding was developed decades ago. The creep feed grinding is the most applicable process in the high performance finishing of parts having deep and narrow grooves and complex shapes.
But in this study, the fact was found that the application of creep feed grinding in the machining of engineering ceramics, despite of several benefits, have some problems. The creep feed ground workpiece over conventional one have more good surface roughness and less surface fracture. But there is a trade off. In the creep feed grinding of ceramics, specific grinding energy and its increasing rate with grinding length are very higher than conventional grinding. This means that the wear of grinding wheel in creep feed grinding is very noticable over conventional grinding.
Surface roughness is not affected by grain size used in experiment, the higher grinding speed and the larger amount of depth of cut and the less size of grinding abrasive, the increasing rate of specific grinding energy is high but the grinding speed is the dominent factor promoting grinding wheel wear.
In conclusion, low speed grinding with large size of abrasive is the most desirable machining condition.