EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF CONTACT-BEHAVIOR IN GRINDING

The nature of the wheel and workpiece contact in grinding has a strong effect on the temperature, force and surface integrity as well as whe el wear in grinding. An applied power source method was used to measur e the real contact length. The interpretation of contact length measur ements is discussed. Experimental measurements of contact length in gr inding show that the contact length is much larger than the geometrica l contact length, This difference is most significant in fine grinding and in the sparkout stage of plunge grinding. The difference also inc reases when the table speed is increased. The contact length in wet gr inding is longer than the contact length in dry grinding. The contact length when grinding cast iron is shorter than the contact length when grinding mild steel. It is found that grinding geometry, grinding for ce and the roughness of the grinding wheel have independent effects on the contact length. The newly developed contact length model by the a uthors describes these effects quantitatively. These results also show the importance of the roughness factor, R(r), for analysis of the con tact behaviour in grinding processes. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.