Wear of diamond grinding wheel in ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding of silicon carbide

Abstract

It is recognized that grinding efficiency and ground surface quality are determined by grinding wheel performance. Additionally, the investigation on wear behavior is essential for evaluating the grinding wheel performance. There is a lack of research on the tool wear behavior during ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding (UAG), whose grain motion trajectory differs from that in conventional grinding (CG). In the present work, CG and UAG tests of silicon carbide (SiC) were conducted in order to investigate the effects of ultrasonic vibration on the tool wear through tracking observation of grains. Meanwhile, the grinding forces and ground surface roughness correlated to the tool wear stages were studied. The results demonstrated that the main wear types during UAG were micro-fracture and macro-fracture which caused the wheel sharpening, while during CG, the main wear type was attritious wear that made the wheel blunt. As a result, UAG obtained lower and more stable grinding forces while slightly rougher ground surface in comparison with CG.