Creep-feed grinding with superabrasives

Grinding is one of the most essential and costly manufacturing processes accounting for between 20 to 25% of the total machining expenditures in industrialized countries. Creep-feed grinding is of strategic importance to the Canadian economy and it is critical to automotive and aerospace industries to produce high-precision complex profiles in components such as turbine blades and to cut profiles in extremely hard materials. The applicant has already applied new grinding techniques to the aerospace industry making significant improvements to the creep-feed grinding process with conventional aluminum oxide abrasives. The proposed research program will further develop Canadian expertise in creep-feed grinding with Cubic Boron Nitride (CBN) superabrasives and improve the productivity and quality of this precision machining process. The specific short-term objectives of this research are to improve the cost-effectiveness of grinding with electroplated and vitrified CBN wheels for Canadian industry by developing wheel-wear and surface-roughness models as well as by developing improved and innovative coolant-delivery and wheel-cleaning systems for CBN wheels. The ability to accurately model CBN wheel wear and workpiece surface roughness will enable optimal dressing intervals (for vitrified CBN wheels) and replating intervals (for electroplated CBN wheels) to be established. Improving the application of coolant in creep-feed grinding with CBN wheels is critical to preventing thermal damage from occurring and enabling higher production rates to be achieved. Corresponding thermal finite element models will be developed and validated using infra-red imaging to improve the fundamental understanding of the resulting heat transfer mechanisms when grinding with CBN wheels. With the proposed research, the applicant will continue to make significant contributions to the advancement of grinding technology and engineering knowledge, and will develop Canadian expertise through the training of highly-qualified personnel.