Ductile mode machining of commercial PZT ceramics

A wide range of products rely on the high-precision fabrication of piece-parts using PZT ceramics. These include ultrasonic medical imaging transducers, ink jet printing heads, etc. Not only is precision important, but also the degree of sub-surface damage needs to be minimised because this is known to compromise performance by engendering depoling. It also leads to in-service problems due to ageing caused by the movement of damage-induced domain walls and cracks. A fundamental machinability investigation was undertaken, commencing with quasi-static and ruling tests, prior to performing diamond turning and grinding experiments. This research has helped in the understanding of the PZT ceramic mechanical and electrical characteristics when machined and also is being used to build up an optimised machining process model.