How a tiny 0.5mm change in drawing saved our client 35% in ceramic machining costs. 📉

A client sent over a silicon nitride ceramic drawing with sharp 90-degree internal corners.

While sharp corners work fine in CNC metal machining, in advanced ceramics, they are a nightmare:

1️⃣ They create severe stress concentration, leading to micro-cracks during sintering.

2️⃣ They require expensive ultra-sonic or specialized diamond grinding tools, skyrocketing the cycle time.

Our solution: Without affecting the application, we suggested adding a R0.5mm radius to the internal corners (as shown in the sketch).

The Result: Zero cracks during the prototyping phase and a 35% drop in overall production costs—without compromising the part’s functionality.