Automatic compensation for grinding wheel wear by pressure based in-process measurement in wet grinding

This paper deals with an application to automatic compensation of grinding wheel wear by a pressure based in-process measurement method in wet grinding. A pressure sensor is set beside a grinding wheel with a small gap. When grinding fluid is dragged into the gap by the rotation, hydrodynamic pressure, which corresponds to the gap length and the topography, can be measured. No electromagnetic properties of the workpiece and grinding wheel affect measured results. This method is applied to a CNC surface grinding machine. The pressure distribution and the relationship between the pressure and the gap length are measured. The pressure is decreased with the increase of the gap length. Its dispersion is around 1% for 0.5 mum-wear of a grinding wheel with 250 mum grit size. The dimensional error of a workpiece using the feedback of the wear is less than the feeding step, for the compensation, of 1 mum. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.