Investigation on the grinding properties of high thermal conductivity vitrified bond CBN grinding wheel for titanium alloy

The purpose of this paper is to study a new high thermal conductivity vitrified bond CBN grinding wheel to improve the heat conduction rate during the grinding of titanium alloy. In order to analyze the effect of graphite addition on the properties of vitrified bond CBN grinding wheel samples, different amounts of graphite (0, 2, 4, 6 wt%) were added to the vitrified bonder. When the graphite addition is 2 wt%, the refractoriness, fluidity, and bending strength of the grinding wheel samples are better than those of conventional vitrified bond grinding wheel samples. The study found that the addition of graphite promoted the formation of pores in the grinding wheel samples after sintering, improved the chip-holding capacity of the grinding wheel, and thus improved the thermal conductivity of the customized grinding wheel. Finally, the vitrified bond grinding wheels with high thermal conductivity were successfully manufactured. Grinding titanium alloy (TC4) under the same experimental conditions showed that high thermal conductive CBN grinding wheels were better to conventional those in terms of grinding temperature and force, machined TC4 surface roughness. Thus, this study shows that high thermal conductivity vitrified bond CBN grinding wheels are more suitable for the grinding of titanium alloys.