Simulation and experiment of electroplated grinding wheel with orderly-micro-grooves

Abstract

The coolant is difficult to enter the grinding zone for effective lubrication by using traditional grinding wheel. Therefore, how to improve the performance of grinding wheel by changing the structure of working face is always a concern. In order to facilitate lubrication and improve cooling performance during grinding, an electroplated grinding wheel is prepared to has a set of orderly-micro-grooves with 0.1 mm in width, 1.5 mm in depth and 0.98 mm in interval on its peripheral surface. The simulation model of the proposed grinding wheel is developed to analyze the flow field of coolant. It is found that (1) the micro-grooves on wheel provide new channels for more coolant to flow into the grinding zone, (2) the volume of useful coolant is increased with a decrease of the width of micro-grooves, and (3) micro-grooves provide additional space to store and transport chips produced in the grinding zone, which alleviates the clogging of the grinding wheel. In order to investigate the impact of micro-grooves on the grinding forces, the grains are modelled as being randomly distributed and oriented on the grinding wheel, and the grinding processes are simulated for both of micro-grooved and un-grooved wheels. The comparative simulation shows that the orderly-micro-grooves reduce both of the normal and tangential grinding forces. Moreover, the fluctuating amplitude of the grinding force is decreased with a decrease of the width of micro-grooves. The simulation results are validated by the grinding experiment on silica glass, and the experiments also show that the orderly-micro-grooves reduce the grinding temperature.