Research on wear characteristics of abrasive belt and the effect on material removal during sanding of medium density fiberboard (MDF)

Abstract

Sanding is a key process for the manufacture and application of medium density fiberboard (MDF). In this paper, the wear characteristics of abrasive belt and the impact on material removal were studied. The topological features which included surface roughness and height distribution were statistically analyzed. Specifically, interference ratio $$\varphi$$ was introduced to evaluate the proportion of the actually involved grits, which was characterized by a significant correlation with the material removal. It was found that there were roughly three phases in the lifecycle of abrasive belt. Fracture and abrasion were the predominant wear patterns of the involved grits that was 68.6% on average. The grits dropping off the backing layer could be observed with 29.8%. Not involved grits accounted for roughly 31.4%. The grey relevancy analysis (GRA) indicated a morphology transfer phenomenon between the workpiece and the belt, while the surface roughness displayed a weak correlation with the material removal.