Influence of bond thermal and mechanical properties on the additively manufactured grinding wheels performance: Mechanical, wear, surface integrity, and topography analysis

Abstract

It is always a great challenge to fabricate customized grinding wheels using diverse bonding materials to determine their impacts on the cutting ability and grinding performance. Additive Manufacturing methods offer tremendous advantages for customized and prototype production to reduce the cost as well as increase speed to market. This work aims to extend the grinding operation knowledge by examining acrylate base resin bonds with different mechanical and thermal characteristics to print the grinding wheels. Extensive experiments are conducted to investigate their performance in metal grinding, with hardness ranging from soft to super hard. A remarkable improvement in grinding performance has been established by using high-temperature resistance bond material, which was more prominent in the case of aluminium and hardened steel. It was discovered that utilizing the bond material with a higher mechanical and thermal characteristic could provide high grain retention under elevated temperatures, which participated in less grinding force (up to 58 % and 18 % in the case of soft and hard metals, respectively). Employing bond material with improved mechanical and thermal properties to fabricate grinding wheels significantly prolonged the tool life, for example, by up to 80 % for hardened steel at maximum, along with promoting dimensional accuracy. Nevertheless, however, using high-temperature resistance resin brought slight improvement in tool life for the hard metals grinding due to the intensely aggressive grinding condition, which could not be largely compensated by using modified resin. The surface roughness of the ground part represented considerable improvements through using high-temperature resistance resin by representing 33 % and 30 % roughness values reduction for Al and hard metal, respectively, compared to those ground with lower temperature resistance resin. Moreover, the ground surface's microhardness examination indicated meaningful surface microstructure change by applying different grinding parameters and bond material types. Furthermore, the microtopography of the grinding wheels before and after the grinding operation revealed that employing the higher temperature resistance resin could bring about notably less chip loading and grain loss.