Polishing investigation on zirconia ceramics using magnetic compound fluid slurry

Zirconia ceramics have wide applications in the fields of aerospace, defence industry, new energy, automotive, electronics and biomedical. However, scratches, micro-cracks and sub-damage are inevitable by using conventional methods. The magnetic-assisted polishing with MCF slurry is considered as a friendly polishing method which can not only achieve smooth surface but also reduce the defects. However, the investigations on the high precision polishing of zirconia ceramics by using the MCF slurry were not conducted so far. In this work, the polishing method by using magnetic compound fluid (MCF) slurry under the rotary magnetic field was proposed for the zirconia ceramics polishing. The principle and the constructed experimental setup were presented at first. Then, the spot polishing was conducted. Finally, the effect of parameters on the finishing of work surface was investigated. Experimental results showed that zirconia ceramics workpiece could be smoothed effectively with the optimised polishing conditions.