Abstract: The effect of surface residual stress and crack on bending strength of reaction bonded silicon carbide (RBSiC) after grinding was investigated. The residual stress of the ground surfaces were determined using X-ray diffraction.The sizes of strength controlling cracks were assessed using fracture mechanics approach. The investigations show that mechanical load, which has relation with grinding direction, phays a dominateve role in the grinding processes. and the measured residual stresses have a direction dependency. With increase of down feed from 0.9μm/s to 1.35μm/s, the bending strength is reasonably correlated with the surface residual stress and crack size.

Key words: Silicon carbide, grinding, residual stress, crack, strength