Precision grinding of bearing steel based on active control of oxide layer state with electrolytic interval dressing

Abstract

The oxide layer state directly relates to machining quality in electrolytic in-process dressing (ELID) grinding. In this paper, intermittent grinding control strategy was used to monitor and control the state of the oxide layer in interval ELID (ELID II) grinding. Some experiments were implemented based on active control of the oxide layer state. The influence of dressing current, wheel speeds, and grit size on surface roughness and waviness has been discussed in detail with ELID II grinding for bearing steel. The experimental results illustrate that the ELID II method can realize a stable grinding process based on active control of the oxide layer state. The surface roughness (Ra) and waviness (Wa) increase with increase of the dressing current. When the dressing current is constant, Ra and Wa reduce as wheel speed increases and decrease as grain size of wheel decreases. The experimental results also show that sufficient abrasive protrusion can be ensured in ELID II grinding, especially for grinding with a W2.5 super-abrasive wheel which may produce a very smooth surface quality, Ra 0.0166 μm and Wa 0.018 μm.