Grinding Wheel Surface Topography for Multiple Pass With Incremental Depth of Cut of Rotary Diamond Dresser

Abstract

Grinding is often used material removal process in manufacturing. A grinding wheel has abrasive grains on its working surface and the material removal efficiency of a grinding wheel decreases with grinding operations. To restore the material removal efficiency of a grinding wheel, dressing is performed. There are several types of dressing methods and among these different methods, mechanical dressing is widely performed. In mechanical dressing, rotary diamond dresser is one of the effective dressers. The grinding wheel surface topography induced from dressing effect the performance of subsequent grinding operation. Therefore, grinding wheel preparation conditions, i.e., dressing conditions and consequently the grinding wheel surface topography have effect on grinding performance. The actual cutting points on diamond grits of a rotary diamond dresser are micro cutting tools which interact with the working surface of the grinding wheel. This interaction of the diamond grits of rotary diamond dresser restores the material removal efficiency of the grinding wheel. In precision engineering, multiple pass and incremental depth of cut of dresser is applied to increase the overall efficiency. This study deals with the surface topography of grinding wheel due to multiple pass and incremental depth of cut dressing operations by rotary diamond dresser. The objective of a dressing operation is to sharpen and protrude the abrasive grits embedded on the working surface of a grinding wheel. To achieve this, the rotary dresser should come in contact with all parts of the working surface of a grinding wheel without hitting the same location repeatedly. A simulation tool has been developed correlating the rotary diamond dresser parameters, grinding wheel parameters and dressing process parameters. In this research, a method is developed which enables one to determine the trajectories of dresser on the working surface of a grinding wheel (i.e., surface topography of grinding wheel) after performing dressing operations multiple times wherein the depth of cut is increased after each pass. A modified simulation is used to visualize surface topography of a grinding wheel for multiple pass with incremental depth of cut. The simulation tool also determines the dressing ratio (percent of working area of grinding wheel that has been dressed) and the areas which are dressed twice or more. Using the modified simulation tool, some strategies, i.e., single pass and multi pass dressing with incremental depth of cut is identified for determining optimal dressing conditions (the dressing conditions for which the dresser covers all circumferential surface of a grinding wheel without dressing the same area repeatedly).