Al2O3 sealing elements lapping

The term ceramics is applied to a range of inorganic materials of widely varying uses. Ceramics in recent years have been sought in many applications due to their improved properties like low density, high fracture toughness, high hardness and wear resistance, good high temperature strength and others. On the negative side, they are far less ductile than metals and tend to fracture immediately when any attempt is made to deform them by mechanical work. This is why machining of ceramic materials is a big challenge and quite expensive affair. Primarily they are finished by abrasive machining processes such as grinding, lapping and polishing. Lapping is used for achieving ultra-high finishes and close tolerances between mating pieces. It has been found very useful in the manufacture of optical mirrors and lenses, ceramics, hard disk drive, semiconductor wafers, valve seats, ball bearings, and many more parts. Lapping process on ceramics usually produces the surface finish as about 1-0.01 mi m of Ra. Aluminium oxide is one of the hardest materials known. Its high hardness promotes a series of applications in mechanical engineering, such as bearings and seals. During research Al2O3 sealing elements were lapping. The main goal was to check the results of machining for different process parameters. The experiments were conduct during flat lapping with use of ABRALAP 380 lapping machine. The lapping machine executory system consists of three conditioning rings. The process results were surface roughness Ra and material removal rate.