High Speed Grinding of Silicon Nitride With Electroplated Diamond Wheels, Part 2: Wheel Topography and Grinding Mechanisms

This is the second in a series of two papers concerned with high speed grinding of silicon nitride with electroplated diamond wheels. In the first article (ASME J. Manuf. Sci. Eng., 122, pp. 32–41), it was shown that grinding of silicon nitride is accompanied by dulling of the abrasive grains and a significant increase in the grinding forces and power. High wheel speed caused more wheel wear, which was attributed to a longer accumulated sliding length between the abrasive grains and the workpiece. This second paper is concerned with the progressive change in wheel topography during grinding and how it affects the grinding process. A statistical model is developed to characterize the wheel topography during grinding in terms of active cutting grains and wear flat area. According to this model, continued grinding is accompanied by an increase in both the number of active grains and the wear flat area on the wheel surface as the wheel wears down. The measured increase in grinding forces and power was found to be proportional to the wear flat area, which implies a constant average contact pressure and friction coefficient between the wear flats and the workpiece. Increasing the wheel speed from 85 to 149 m/s significantly reduced the contact pressure, which may be attributed to a reduction of the interference angle, but had almost no effect on the attritious wear rate of the diamond abrasive. Therefore, more rapid wear of the diamond wheel at higher wheel speeds due to a longer sliding length may be offset by reduced contact pressures and lower grinding forces. [S1087-1357(00)00401-9]