Grinding with patterned grinding wheels

Grinding is one of the most important manufacturing processes, especially when high surface qualities have to be realized or if hard or brittle materials have to be machined. Often the grinding performance is limited by workpiece failure due to a high thermal load in the contact zone. Therefore structured or patterned grinding wheels are frequently used to reduce the thermal load in the contact zone. In this paper a new patterning method will be introduced by using a fly-cutting kinematic for the structuring process. In face grinding experiments the patterned grinding wheels showed great potential to enhance the overall grinding performance by significantly decreasing process forces and grinding burn. The reduction of the thermal load in the contact zone can be explained by an improved coolant flow through the contact zone, which was measured with a specially designed coolant collecting bin. (C) 2014 CIRP.