Abrasive Machining Processes

Grinding
Lapping
Honing

Mechanical Engineering department

UNIT V
Grinding machine cutting action classification of
grinding machines cylindrical and surface grinding
machine Different types of abrasives and bonds,
Specification and selection of a grinding wheel, Truing
and Dressing the grinding wheels,
Lapping and Honing comparison to grinding

 Abrasive machining is a material-removal process that

involves the interaction of abrasive grits with the workpiece at
high cutting speeds and shallow penetration depths.
The results that can be obtained by abrasive machining range
from the finest and smoothest surfaces produced by any
machining process, in which very little material is removed, to
rough, coarse surfaces that accompany high material-removal
rates.
The abrasive particles may be (1) Free (2) Adhered to resin on
a belt or most commonly (3) Close packed into wheels or stones,
with abrasive grits held together by bonding material (called
bonded product or a grinding wheel).

Compared to machining, abrasive machining processes

have THREE unique characteristics:
1) Each cutting edge is very small, and many of these
edges can cut simultaneously.
2) Extremely hard abrasive grits can be produced,
including
diamonds hence very hard materials, such
as hardened steel, glass, carbides, and ceramics, can
readily be machined.
3) In grinding, you have no control over the actual tool
geometry (rake angles, cutting edge radius)

Grinding

 Grinding is the most common form of abrasive machining.

The process which engages an abrasive tool whose cutting elements are grains
of abrasive material known as grit (irregularly shaped).
These grits are characterized by sharp cutting points, high hot hardness,
chemical stability and wear resistance.
The grits are held together by a suitable bonding material to give shape of an
abrasive tool.

Cutting Action of Grains

BASIC SCHEME

 Grinding has some similarity to up milling except the cutting

points are irregularly shaped & randomly oriented
Grains which take part in grinding active grains
They become blunt & wear out results in increased cutting
force
When edge is too blunt cutting force increases grains
fractures or separates from wheel new sharp cutting edges
are exposed and active
Grinding wheel has Self Sharpening characteristics
Bonding strength is important
Grinding is a very high specific energy consumption process
inefficient process
Process results in very hot and small chips welded to either
grit or workpiece
Random orientation of grit - grit have negative rake results
in rubbing rather than cutting

Major advantages and applications of grinding

Advantages
dimensional accuracy
good surface finish
good form and locational accuracy applicable to both hardened and
unhardened material
Applications
surface finishing
slitting and parting
descaling, deburring
stock removal (abrasive milling) finishing of flat as well as cylindrical surface
grinding of tools and cutters and resharpening of the same.

CUTTING ACTION OF GRINDIING WHEEL

Specific cutting energy is 10 times > other cutting process since not all of
particles can cut but rub on the surface, and also the rake angle is not
optimised.

Grinding Wheel Surface

GRINDING WHEELS
Grinding wheel consists of hard abrasive grains called grits, which
perform the cutting or material removal, held in the weak bonding
matrix.
A grinding wheel commonly identified by the type of the abrasive
material used. The conventional wheels include aluminium oxide and
silicon carbide wheels while diamond and cBN (cubic boron nitride)
wheels fall in the category of super abrasive wheel.

Specification of Grinding wheel

A grinding wheel requires two types of specification

Geometrical specification

Compositional specification

Geometrical Specification
This is decided by the type of grinding machine and the grinding
operation to be performed in the workpiece. This specification mainly
includes wheel diameter, width and depth of rim and the bore diameter.
Standard wheel configurations for conventional grinding wheels are
shown

Compositional Specifications
Specification of a grinding wheel ordinarily means compositional specification.
Conventional abrasive grinding wheels are specified encompassing the following
parameters:
1) Type of Abrasive material
2) Abrasive grain size
3) Grade - Bond strength of the wheel - commonly known as wheel hardness
4) Structure of the wheel denoting the porosity i.e. the amount of inter grit
spacing
5) Type of Bond material
6) Other Parameters - the wheel manufacturer may add their own identification
code prefixing or suffixing (or both) the standard code.

Standard Marking System for Aluminum-Oxide and

Silicon-Carbide Bonded Abrasives

Mechanical Engineering department

Elaborate the details for the grinding wheel having the marking
given below:

51 A 60 K 5 V 05

Abrasives (Grit)
1) Abrasives can be natural or manmade.
Natural include:

Sand stone
Emery
Diamond
Garnet
Quartz

2) Artificial
Silicon Carbide
Aluminum Oxide
Cubic Boron Nitride

 Silicon carbide is harder than alumina but less tough. Silicon carbide is
also inferior to Al2O3 because of its chemical reactivity with iron and steel.
Al2O3 is tougher than SiC. Therefore it is preferred to grind material
having high tensile strength like steel. Moreover, Al2O3 shows higher
chemical inertness than SiC towards steel leading to much improved wear
resistance during grinding.
Diamond grit is best suited for grinding cemented carbides, glass,
sapphire, stone, granite, marble, concrete, oxide, non-oxide ceramic, fiber
reinforced plastics, ferrite, graphite.
Diamond though hardest is not suitable for grinding ferrous materials
because of its reactivity. In contrast, cBN the second hardest material,
because of its chemical stability is the abrasive material of choice for
efficient grinding of HSS, alloy steels, HSTR alloys.

Abrasive Grain Size (Grit Size)

Grains are separated by mechanical sieving machines. The
number of openings per linear inch in the sieve(or screen)
through which the particles can pass determines the grain size.
Typical classifications:
Course, medium, and fine
Silicon Carbides range from 2-240 in size
Aluminum Oxides range from 4-240 in size
600 range are generally used in honing or
lapping operations
The grain size affects material removal rate and the surface quality
of workpiece in grinding.
Large grit - big grinding capacity, rough workpiece surface
Fine grit - small grinding capacity, smooth workpiece surface

Grade
Grade is determined by the strength of the bonding material

The worn out grit must pull out from the bond and make room for fresh
sharp grit in order to avoid excessive rise of grinding force and
temperature.
Therefore, a soft grade should be chosen for grinding hard material.
On the other hand, during grinding of low strength soft material grit
does not wear out so quickly.
Therefore, the grit can be held with strong bond so that premature grit
dislodgement can be avoided.

Structure
Abrasive grains are not packed in the wheel but are distributed
through the bond. The relative spacing is referred to as the Structure

The structure should be open for grinding wheels engaged in

high material removal to provide chip accommodation space
rough cuts
The space between the grits also serves as pocket for holding
grinding fluid.
On the other hand dense structured wheels are used for
longer wheel life, for holding precision forms and profiles
precision cuts

Wheel Bonding Agents

Vitrified bond (V)
Composed of clay and other ceramic substances. Abrasive particles are mixed
with wheel material then pressed together and fired in a kiln.
Suitable for high stock removal even at dry condition. It can also be safely used
in wet grinding.
It can not be used where mechanical impact or thermal variations are like to
occur.

Resin bond (B)

Plastic compound wheels
Conventional abrasive resin bonded wheels are widely used for heavy duty
grinding because of their ability to withstand shock load.
This bond is also known for its vibration absorbing characteristics and finds its
use with diamond and cBN in grinding of cemented carbide and steel respectively.

Shellac bond (E)

Abrasives are mixed with shellac, heated (330 F) and pressed or rolled into
the desired shape.
These wheels are thin, elastic, and strong.
At present use of shellac bond is limited to grinding wheels engaged in fine
finish of rolls.

Oxychloride bond (O)

It is less common type bond, but still can be used in disc grinding operation. It
is used under dry condition.

Rubber bond (R)

Its principal use is in thin wheels for wet cut-off operation. High speed wheels
with a considerable amount of flexibility. Typically these wheels will operate at
speeds of up to 16,000 ft/min.

CLASSIFICATION OF GRINDING MACHINES

Rough grinding

1) Bench, Pedestal or Floor

Grinders

Precision grinding

1) Cylindrical grinders
a) Plain Centre type

2) Sing frame grinders

b) Universal centre type

3) Portable grinders

c) Centreless

4) Abrasive belt grinders

2) Internal grinders
3) Surface grinders
4) Tool & Cutter grinders
5) Special grinding
machines

Cylindrical grinders

Internal grinders

Surface grinders

Rough grinding

Belt Grinding

Belt grinding of turbine nozzle vanes.

Cylindrical grinding machine

This machine is used to produce external cylindrical surface. The surfaces
may be straight, tapered, steps or profiled.
Broadly there are three different types of cylindrical grinding machine as
follows:
1. Plain centre type cylindrical grinder
2. Universal cylindrical surface grinder
3. Centreless cylindrical surface grinder

Plain centre type cylindrical grinder

The machine is similar to a centre lathe in many respects. The workpiece is
held between head stock and tailstock centres.
A disc type grinding wheel performs the grinding action with its peripheral
surface.
Both traverse and plunge grinding can be carried out in this machine

CYLINDRICAL GRINDERS Centre type

Transverse grinding

Plunge grinding

Work reciprocates and wheel feeds to

produce cylindrical work pieces longer
than the width of the wheel face

Work rotates in fixed position as the

wheel feeds to produce cylindrical
surface of length equal to or shorter
than the width of wheel face

In centre type grinders work is held between centers.

There may be four movements involved in cylindrical centers type
grinders:
1) Work must revolve

2) wheel must revolve

3) work must pass the wheel

4) Wheel must pass the work

Applications of Cylindrical grinders

1) Thread Grinding
Principle of cylindrical grinding is being used for thread grinding with specially
formed wheel that matches the thread profile.
A single ribbed wheel or a multi ribbed wheel can be used

2) Crankshaft Grinding

Universal cylindrical surface grinder

similar to a plain cylindrical one except that it is more versatile.
In addition to small worktable swivel, this machine provides large swivel of
head stock, wheel head slide and wheel head mount on the wheel head slide.
This allows grinding of any taper on the workpiece

CYLINDRICAL GRINDERS Centreless

Centreless grinding is a method of grinding exterior cylindrical, tapered
and formed surfaces on workpieces that are not held and rotated between
centres
Components like pistons, bushes, valve tubes etc., which do not have
centers are ground in this method
Principal elements of external centerless grinder are:
1) Grinding wheel
2) Regulating wheel or backup wheel
3) Work rest
Both wheels are rotated in same direction
Work is placed on work rest
Regulating wheel supports & helps work to maintain contact with grinding
wheel

The common methods for feeding the work are:

1) Through feed

2) Infeed

3)End feed

Principle of through feed centreless grinding

Principle of through feed centreless grinding

In through-feed centreless grinding, the regulating wheel revolving at a much

lower surface speed than grinding wheel controls the rotation and longitudinal
motion of the workpiece. The regulating wheel is kept slightly inclined to the
axis of the grinding wheel and the workpiece is fed longitudinally

Parts with variable diameter can be ground by Centreless infeed grinding The
operation is similar to plunge grinding with cylindrical grinder.

End feed grinding is used for workpiece with tapered surface. The grinding
wheel or the regulating wheel or both require to be correctly profiled to get the
required taper on the workpiece.

Tool and cutter grinder machine

Tool grinding may be divided into two subgroups: tool manufacturing and
tool resharpening.
There are many types of tool and cutter grinding machine to meet these
requirements.
Simple single point tools are occasionally sharpened by hand on bench or
pedestal grinder.
However, tools and cutters with complex geometry like milling cutter, drills,
reamers and hobs require sophisticated grinding machine commonly known as
universal tool and cutter grinder.
Present trend is to use tool and cutter grinder equipped with CNC to grind
tool angles, concentricity, cutting edges and dimensional size with high
precision.

SURFACE GRINDING

Internal Grinding

Grinding wheels, like other cutting tools, require frequent reconditioning of

cutting surfaces to perform efficiently. Dressing is the term used to
describe the process of cleaning the periphery of grinding wheels. This
cleaning breaks away dull abrasive grains and smoothes the surface so
that there are no grooves.
Truing is the term used to describe the removal of material from the
cutting face of the wheel so that the resultant surface runs absolutely true
to some other surface such as the grinding wheel shaft.

Grinding Wheel Operating Procedures

Truing - Restores the original geometry to the
grinding wheel. It also can be used to ensure
the wheel is running concentric with the
spindle of the grinding machine.
Dressing - Exposes a new cutting surface on
the grinding wheel.
Balancing - Typically performed on large and
diamond wheels this procedure ensures the
wheel is running true with the axis of rotation.

DRESSING OF GRINDING WHEELS

Grinding wheels must be regularly dressed to keep them sharp and clean.
This is because grinding wheels are like sandpaper, they both become dull
with use. The grit breaks down and becomes dull and worn.
If grinding wheels are not sharp, they begin rubbing rather than cutting,
which results in increased friction. This in turn can result in burned tools
due to the overheating.
Wheels must also be kept free from metal particles that build up during
sharpening. Like sandpaper that gets clogged with sawdust during
sanding, grinding wheels become clogged with metal particles during
grinding

TRUING DEVICE FOR GRINDING WHEEL

The device enables a precise concentricity and a correct geometric

form of the grinding wheel
The truing helps to remove contaminants and blunted granular layer from
the grinding body
The truing wheels with U-shaped teeth run on a hardened and lubricated
axle, for high rotational speed
Suitable for normal corundum, special fused alumina and silicium carbide