Economic CBN Grinding Wheel Use

PROCESS REQUIREMENTS FOR PRECISON GRINDING
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Liverpool
John Moores University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
September 2003

The hypothesis was that high-speed CBN grinding allows total costs to be reduced while
maintaining or improving quality.

Aim
To establish if high speed grinding using vitrified CBN offers the benefits predicted by
theory and leads to a reduction in process costs without losing target workpiece quality.

1.3 Objectives
a. To investigate the design, characteristics and performance of a purpose built high speed
grinding machine.
b. To investigate how dressing and cycle parameters affect performance when grinding an
easy-to-grind material with vitrified CBN.
c. To investigate how dressing and cycle parameters affect performance when grinding a
difficult-to-grind material with vitrified CBN.
d. To determine if high-speed grinding offers a cost benefit to justify the increased
complexity and cost of a suitable high-speed grinding machine.
e. Establish if step changes in the grinding process can be achieved when moving from:
i. Grinding with aluminium oxide wheels to grinding with vitrified CBN wheels
at conventional speeds.
ii. Grinding with vitrified CBN wheels at conventional speed to grinding with
vitrified CBN wheels at high speed.
f. To propose process requirements for cost effective precision grinding.

Conditions were defined for success in the high-speed CBN
grinding process.