Investigation of the Ductile Cutting Behavior of Monocrystalline Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia During Ultra-Precision Orthogonal Cutting

Manufacturability of advanced ceramics has been a challenging issue mainly because of their brittle behaviors and high hardness. One approach to solving this issue is enabling ductile regime cutting, which can also be used to enhance the quality of the surface and accuracy of the final product. There have been many studies investigating how to control and prolong the ductile response regime during cutting; however, it still lacks a straightforward explanation that enables us to predict the transition of the material response from the ductile regime to the brittle regime. In this study, the processing of monocrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia was investigated to predict material behavior during cutting. Here, it is aimed to confirm that stress intensity factor analysis can be applied with a wide variety of process parameters and investigate the effect of varying the process parameters on the ductile–brittle material response transition. Experimental results showed that negative rake angle and higher cutting speed prolonged the ductile cutting regime. However, the cutting stress at the ductile–brittle transition point remained constant regardless of the process parameters which enabled us to predict the transition point with respect to the stress intensity factor. It is expected that the results of this research can contribute to the development of machining strategies with improved throughput and thus to increasing the utilization of ceramic materials.