Ceramic cutting tools have been successfully employed in many industrial application. However they were found to be very sensitive to thermal and mechanical impact loadings. Because ceramics are hard and brittle, fracture resulting from structural defects is more likely than in metallic materials. After the sintering process ceramic cutting tools are ground in order to achieve close tolerances. So far less information exists on the relation between the grinding process the produced surface layer in terms of residual stresses and subsurface cracks and the tool wear in the subsequent cutting operations. The investigations performed started with the investigation of the tool grinding process. A process model has been developed that allows to describe the induced subsurface damage depending on machine settings. Residual stresses and subsurface cracks induced in the surface layer correlate with the grit depth of cut in grinding. For non interrupted cutting conditions only a slight influence of the surface layer on the tool wear was found. In terms of interrupted cutting a strong influence on the grinding induced surface layer on the tool wear was foundSIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F93B1304+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman