Introduction

Abstract

Brittle material has been widely employed in industry due to its excellent mechanical, electrical, optical, physical and chemical properties. However, it is extremely difficult to machine brittle material using conventional cutting technologies to achieve very smooth and damage-free surfaces due to its high hardness, high wear-resistance and high toughness. While obtaining smooth surface on brittle material by traditional grinding, lapping and polishing methods is very costly and time consuming, such that its engineering applications are largely limited. A technology for efficiently cutting of brittle material is urgently needed for the industry. Ductile mode cutting (DMC) is a very promising technical solution to achieve high quality and crack-free surface in cutting of brittle material, which has been recognized as an important technique for the industry. DMC is a material removal process particularly for brittle material using a rigid cutting tool, where stock material is removed by plastic deformation rather than fracturing. Therefore, it has been attracting more and more affords to study ductile mode cutting of brittle material. It is believed that ductile mode cutting of brittle material can be achieved under certain cutting conditions, while crack-free and no subsurface-damage surfaces can be obtained simultaneously.