Study of polycrystalline Al2O3 machining cracks using discrete element method

Discrete element method (DEM) was introduced to simulate crack initiation and propagation of polycrystalline alumina during the brittle model machining process. A bonded particle model (BPM) was employed in the DEM simulations procedure to generate a particle assembly system similar to the micro-structure of the polycrystalline alumina. Particle and parallel bond properties, which were calibrated through a series of numerical tests, were subsequently used in the simulations of polycrystalline alumina cutting process and scratching tests. It is found that the cracks initiated right under or in front of the machining tool. There were many micro-cracks remained on the machined surface, some of them propagated downwards to form macro-cracks or forwards to lead material removal. Both DEM simulations and acoustic emission measure experiments have found that the fracture became acute when the normal and the tangential force changed suddenly, causing the crack number to increase. In 3D DEM scratching simulation, the surface cracks length and subsurface cracks depth linearly increased with the scratching depth, the value agreed well with the experimental results, and the surface-damage width decreased gradually with the depth to the surface, looking like half of a coin.