Wear of Silicon Carbide Wheel During Grinding of Intermetallic Titanium Aluminide

Abstract

An experimental investigation is reported on the wear of silicon carbide wheel and its influence on the wheel topography and grinding behaviour during the surface grinding of high performance intermetallic gamma titianium aluminide. The radial wear of the wheel was characterised by initial transient state followed by a steady state wear regime and finally a steel rise in wear rate. The initial transient region progressed up to a radial wear of 40 μm. The normal and tangential forces remained approximately constant up to about 25 μm wheel wear and subsequently progressively increased to a maximum at 60 μm wear. The specific energy began approximately at about u = 140 J/mm3 and started progressing beyond radial wear of 25 μm and increased up to 600 J/mm3 at wear of 60 μm. There was high initial roughness value with the fresh wheel with a progressive decrease with continued grinding. There was noticeable increase in roughness value after a radial wear of 60 μm. With the progress of wear there was presence of surface burns, chatter marks and cracking. The presence of blue oxide discoloration was observed during the visual inspection signifying the generation of reasonably high temperature.