Performance Enhancement of Cylindrical Grinding Process with a Portable Diagnostic System

Material removal processes are one among several manufacturing processes that necessitates the enhancement of their precision capability to cater the demanding needs of higher technological innovations. The performance of a material removal process depends on several factors like the precision of the machine tool, process parameters, process consumables and to a certain extent on the skill of the operator. This paper presents an approach to develop a diagnostic system that can enhance the performance of cylindrical grinding process by monitoring vital process signals like grinding power and infeed of axis. The developed diagnostic system comprises of a powercell and LVDT enabling the measurement of power drawn by wheel spindle along with the wheel infeed movement. Using the measured signals, the developed system is used to optimize the grinding cycle parameters in order to enhance the efficiency of the process. The effectiveness of the developed in-process portable diagnostic system is demonstrated with two case studies. The effect of dressing on the performance of the grinding process is explained in one of the case studies using the diagnostic tool. In another industrial case study, the application of diagnostic tool for selecting the grinding cycle and to determine the frequency of dressing is explained.