Unit-III
Grinding
Grinding
Grinding
• It is the process carried out with grinding wheel made-
up of abrasive grains, for removing very fine or small
quantitates of material from workpiece.
• An abrasive is small, hard particles having sharp edges
and irregular shape.
• Abrasive grains remove only small amount of material.
• For high rate of material removal, large number of
grains act together.
• This is done by using bonded abrasive.
• Due to heavy load, abrasive grain either dislodge or
fractured
Types of Grinding Operations
Types of Grinding Operations
Grinding Wheel Characteristics
• The performance of a grinding wheel depends on the following
important factors:
1. Abrasive type The abrasives generally used are aluminium oxide,
silicon carbide, and diamond.
2. Grain size: Represent by Grit number. Higher grit number means
smaller grain size.
3. Bonding material/Bond type: Vitrified clay, resinoid materials,
silicates, rubber, shellac, and metals.
4. Structure: In an open structure (for ductile material), the grains are
not too densely packed, and in a wheel with a closed structure (for
hard material), the grains are tightly packed.
5. Grade: The grade is determined by the strength of the bonding
material. So, a hard wheel means strong bonding and the abrasive
grains can withstand large forces without getting dislodged from
the wheel. In the case of a soft wheel, the situation is just the
opposite.
Grinding Wheel Specification
Abrasive type
• Hard materials and act as cutting edge.
• The abrasives generally used are aluminium oxide (A), silicon carbide
(C), and diamond (D) and sometimes CBN (B).
• Diamond is the hardest substance known and is used for very hard work
materials.
• Aluminium oxide and silicon carbide are more commonly used for
making the grinding wheels.
• Silicon carbide is harder than aluminium oxide but dulls more rapidly.
• Generally, aluminium oxide abrasives are selected for the surface
grinding of steels and bronzes, whereas silicon carbide is chosen for the
surface grinding of cast iron, brass, aluminium, and hard alloys.
• Abrasive particles have ability to fracture into small pieces when force
increases, termed as Friability.
• Self sharpening ability.
Grain size
• The size of the grains is generally specified by the grit size.
• A 60 grit size, for example, is approximately 1/60 inch
square.
• The larger the size of the grains, the more will be the material
removal capacity, but the quality of the surface finish
deteriorates.
• Thus, the grain size is determined primarily by the surface
quality requirements.
• For heat sensitive material, large grit number is used as heat
generation would be less.
• Course grains are better for high MRR and better friability
and not good for intermittent grinding as they are likely to
chip easily.
Bonding material (Type of Bond)
• The function of the bond is to keep abrasive grains together under grinding force
action.
• The bond materials commonly used are vitrified clay, resinoid materials, silicates,
rubber, shellac, and metals.
• Vitrified: The vitrified bond is strong and rigid. It is the most common type of bond
used. Also called ceramic bond.
• The resin bonds are made from synthetic organic materials. Such bonds are strong and
fairly flexible. Bonds are not heat and chemical resistant.
• The silicate bonds are essentially the silicates of soda (water glass). These bonds are
not as strong as the vitrified bonds, and the grains are dislodged more rapidly. As a
result, the operation is cooler. Such bonds are used in grinding tools where the
temperature rise should be as small as possible.
• The rubber bonds are used for making flexible wheels. A high speed operation is
possible when the wheel is subjected to a side thrust. A fairly hard vulcanized rubber is
used as the bonding material.
• The shellac bonds are used in making thin but strong wheels possessing some
elasticity. Shellac bonded wheel is used in grinding parts such as cam shaft and mill
roll.
Structure
• The grinding wheel must have voids to allow space for the
chips.
• If the voids are too small for the chips, the chips stay in the
wheel, blocking the voids.
• This is known as loading of the wheel. Loading causes
inefficient cutting.
• If the voids are too large, again the cutting action is inefficient
since there will be too few cutting edges.
• In an open structure, the grains are not too densely packed, and
in a wheel with a closed structure, the grains are tightly packed.
• For grinding ductile work materials, larger chips are produced,
and to reduce the tendency of loading, an open structure is
preferred.
• In the case of hard and brittle work materials, a closed structure
is selected.
• The structure depends on the required grade and also the nature
of cut. For a rough cut, an open structure is more suitable.
Grade
• The grade is determined by the strength of the bonding material.
• Hard wheel means strong bonding and the abrasive grains can withstand
large forces without getting dislodged from the wheel.
• In the case of a soft wheel, the situation is just the opposite.
• When the work material is hard, the grains wear out easily and the
sharpness of the cutting edges is quickly lost.
• This is known as glazing of the wheel.
• A glazed wheel cuts less and rubs more, making the process inefficient.
• To avoid this problem, a soft wheel should be used so that the grains which lose the sharpness get easily dislodged as the
machining force on the individual grains increases.
• Thus, the layers of new grains are exposed, maintaining the sharpness of the wheel.
• When the work material is soft, a hard wheel should be used since the problem of glazing will be absent and a longer
wheel life will be achieved.
• So, for a work material, there exists an optimal grade too hard a wheel causes glazing, whereas too soft a wheel wears
out very fast.
• Figure shows the nature of growth of power requirement as the grinding operation continues for too hard, optimum, and
too soft wheels.
A 46 M 6 V 21
Grinding Wheels
Wheel Life
• Study of grinding wheel life is a complex problem
than that of an ordinary cutting tool.
• The usable period depends not only on the wheel
wear but also on the wheel loading and glazing.
• The abrasive grains also have a finite life.
• An abrasive grain may lose volume in two ways,
namely,
(i) by a gradual wear of its sharp edges (known as attrition
wear), and
(ii) by a fracture of a portion.
Wheel Life
• A grinding wheel wears more rapidly than the
tools used in the other conventional machining
operations.
• The commonly-used parameter for evaluating the
performance of a wheel is the grinding ratio (G)
given by the relation
𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑
• 𝐺=
𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦
• Refer Figure. The wear curve is quite similar to that of the other cutting tools.
• Also, there is an initial breakdown period followed by a region of uniform wear rate.
• Finally, the wheel again starts breaking down rapidly.
• The middle zone in figure is the real usable period which determines the life of a wheel.
Grinding Ratio
Wheel Dressing
• Once the period of uniform wear rate ends, the
wheel should be reconditioned (as when
regrinding a tool) before using it again.
• The reconditioning of a wheel is done by a
process commonly known as wheel dressing.
• This requires holding a hard tipped tool against
the rotating wheel and giving the dresser some
feed motion to cover the whole width of the
wheel.
• By this process, the dull, used layer is crushed,
exposing the fresh surface.
• Thus, all the problems accumulated by glazing
and loading are removed.
Mechanics of Grinding
• In our analysis of the grinding process, all grains are assumed to be identical.
• The basic scheme of chip formation during surface grinding is shown in Fig.
• d = Depth of cut
• D = Diameter of the wheel
• 𝑡1𝑚𝑎𝑥 = Maximum uncut thickness
• l = Average length of chip.
Selection of Grinding Wheel
During the selection of a grinding wheel (or deciding its specification) for particular
application the following factors should be taken care:-
➢ The workpiece material,
➢ workpiece requirements (in terms of tolerances, surface finish, etc.),
➢ type of operation to be conducted,
➢ grinding conditions
➢ type of grinder to be used
Selection of Grinding Wheel
➢ A soft grade wheel is recommended for the grinding of hard materials to facilitate self
sharpening action of the wheel, while relatively harder wheel is advised for softer
materials to be ground so that larger MRR can be achieved.
➢ Further, if workpiece-wheel contact area is small, wheel wear rate will be low, and if
large contact area, wheel wear rate will be high.
➢ It is also recommended to use a close structure wheel on hard brittle material, but a
more open structure wheel for soft ductile material.
➢ A coarse grain wheel gives rapid stock removal and rough finish, while a fine grain
wheel yields low MRR and fine finish.
➢ MRR is influenced by the method of dressing of the grinding wheel.
➢ Bonding material should provide sufficient strength to resist various forces acting on
the grinding wheel.