Grinding swarf

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When grinding chips, obtained from a variety of workpiece materials and abrasives, are examined using a scanning election microscope, a number of interesting observations may be made concerning the mechanics of chip formation. In this study, work materials ranging from very ductile to very hard and brittle have been subjected to conventional dry surface grinding using Al 2O 3 and diamond abrasives. Chips have been collected and studied under the Scanning Electron Microscope and specific grinding energy values compared. An important difference between chips from ductile and brittle workpieces is that long ribbon-like chips tend to form with ductile materials but small powder-like particles with hard brittle materials such as ceramics. At high removal rates there tends to be a chip storage problem relative to forces and energy required, particularly with metal or resin-bonded superabrasive (diamond or cubic BN) wheels. An important consequence of this difference in chip types for ductile and brittle materials is that brittle materials tend to exhibit a smaller chip storage problem than ductile materials and hence allow a greater removal rate for the same available chip storage volume between bond and work.