Experimental and modeling characterization of wear and life expectancy of electroplated CBN grinding wheels

Wear and life expectancy of a nickel-electroplated monolayer of cubic boron nitride grinding wheels are characterized based on the wheel surface topological evolution, observed after grinding Inconel 718 super-alloys. The wheel is for surface or cylindrical grinding, and having 250 mm diameter, 10 mm thickness and B40/50 coarse grit size. A unique grit-workpiece interaction process, leading to a non-uniform spatial distribution of the grit wear has been identified. Largest grits have been observed to pullout rapidly, resulting in load redistribution to their surroundings, and leading to the attritious and fracture wear phase. The detailed analysis showed that the stresses on the cutting grits arising from the thermal shock are 3–5 folds those arising from mechanical cutting forces, and reach an order of magnitude differences for the high efficiency deep grinding (HEDG) process. It is also found that the grit wear rate is primarily dependent on the workpiece feed rate rather than the grinding wheel speed. The total wheel life is then constructed as the sum of pullout life (Phase-I) and attritious and fracture wear life (Phase-II). Model predictions for the total wheel life compare well to the experimental observations. This facilitates comparisons of different types of grinding configurations and design space exploration. As an example, the HEDG process is compared to a regular high speed grinding, and it is observed that HEDG configuration can deliver much higher material removal for the same amount of wheel wear.