A study of creep-feed grinding of metallic and ceramic materials

Abstract The application of modern materials in severe working environment requires 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 factor such that the working reliability of ground components could be improved to the full extent. The technique of creep-feed grinding (CFG) has been found to be most suitable for geometrical shaping, and hence been expected to improve effectively the productivity and surface quality of components with complex profiles. In the last few decades, however, many problems have been encountered in the application of CFG processes, which attracts numerous researchers to study the grinding mechanisms for different materials and explore correspondingly the optimal grinding conditions. The present paper investigates experimentally the effects of grinding conditions on the surface integrity of some metallic and ceramic materials in the CFG regime. Some important factors, such 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 workpiece materials were used to generate representative results for particular comparisons. The X-ray diffraction method was applied to measure the distribution of surface residual stresses. It is found that the coolant supply method has a significant effect on the distribution of surface residual stresses but its contributions to the grinding forces and specific energy are negligible. The SEM examination of ground surfaces indicates that the technique of ductile-regime creep-feed grinding for ceramic materials may be developed for practical application.