Study on micro-topographical removals of diamond grain and metal bond in dry electro-contact discharge dressing of coarse diamond grinding wheel

Abstract

A coarse diamond grinding wheel is able to perform smooth surface grinding with high and rigid grain protrusion, but it is very difficult to dress it. Hence, the dry electro-contact discharge (ECD) is proposed to dress #46 diamond grinding wheel for dry grinding of carbide alloy. The objective is to understand micro-topographical removals of diamond grain and metal bond for self-optimizing dressing. First, the pulse power and direct-current (DC) power were employed to perform dry ECD dressing in contrast to mechanical dressing; then the micro-topographies of diamond grains and metal bond were recognized and extracted from measured wheel surface, respectively; finally, the relationship between impulse discharge parameters and micro-topographical removals was investigated with regard to grain cutting parameters, dry grinding temperature and ground surface. It is shown that the dry ECD dressing along with spark discharge removal may enhance the dressing efficiency by about 10 times and dressing ratio by about 34 times against the mechanical dressing along with cutting removal. It averagely increases grain protrusion height by 12% and grain top angle by 23%, leading to a decrease 37% in grinding temperature and a decrease 46% in surface roughness. Compared with the DC-25V power along with arc discharges, the Pulse-25V power removes the metal bond at 0.241mm3/min by utilizing discharge energy by 73% and diamond grain at 0.013mm3/min through surface graphitization, respectively, leading to high and uniform grain protrusion. It is confirmed that the impulse discharge parameters are likely to control the microscopic grain protrusion topography for efficient dressing according to their relations to the micro-removal of metal bond.