A STUDY OF CREEP-FEED GRINDING OF METALLIC AND CERAMIC MATERIALS

The application of modern materials in severe working environment requ ires that the surface integrity of ground elements should reach a high level to obtain satisfactory resistance to various external stimuli. In response, extensive attention has been paid to study this key facto r such that the working reliability of ground components could be impr oved to the full extent. The technique of creep-feed grinding (CFG) ha s been found to be most suitable for geometrical shaping, and hence be en expected to improve effectively the productivity and surface qualit y of components with complex profiles. In the last few decades, howeve r, many problems have been encountered in the application of CFG proce sses, which attracts numerous researchers to study the grinding mechan isms for different materials and explore correspondingly the optimal g rinding conditions. The present paper investigates experimentally the effects of grinding conditions on the surface integrity of some metall ic and ceramic materials in the CFG regime. Some important factors, su ch as grinding forces, specific energy, material removal rate, coolant supply method, surface roughness and residual stresses are discussed in detail. In the experiment, different types of grinding wheels and w orkpiece materials were used to generate representative results for pa rticular comparisons. The X-ray diffraction method was applied to meas ure the distribution of surface residual stresses. It is found that th e coolant supply method has a significant effect on the distribution o f surface residual stresses but its contributions to the grinding forc es and specific energy are negligible. The SEM examination of ground s urfaces indicates that the technique of ductile-regime creep-feed grin ding for ceramic materials may be developed for practical application.