Machinability investigation of reaction-bonded silicon carbide by single-point diamond turning

Reaction-bonded silicon carbide (RB-SiC) is a recently developed ceramic material with many merits such as low manufacturing temperature, dense structure, high purity and low cost. In the present paper, the precision machinability of RB-SiC was studied by microindentation and single-point diamond turning (SPDT) tests. The influence of depth of cut and tool feed rate on surface roughness and cutting force was investigated. Results showed that there was no clear ductile-brittle transition in machining behavior. The material removal mechanism involves falling of the SiC grains and intergranular microfractures of the bonding silicon, which prevents from large-scale cleavage fractures. The minimum surface roughness depends on the initial material microstructure in terms of sizes of the SiC grains and micro pores. This work preliminarily indicates that SPDT can be used as a high-efficiency machining process for RB-SiC.