Grinding behavior of VP50IM steel using green and black silicon carbide compared to aluminum oxide wheel under different feed rates

Technological advances and the development of new products make it increasingly necessary to seek to improve production means to meet the growing demand for equipment and consumer goods. In this sense, the molds enable the large-scale production of complex workpieces and equipment, which could hardly be manufactured through conventional machining. Also, the molds’ surface quality must be high to avoid deviations in the produced workpieces, being achieved through grinding. Thus, this work evaluates the performance of the VP50IM mold steel grinding process using feed rates of 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75 mm/min under the conventional lubrication method, comparing the results obtained with conventional wheels of white aluminum oxide, green silicon carbide, and white aluminum oxide and black silicon carbide grain tool. The comparison was made considering the results of surface roughness (Ra), roundness error, acoustic emission, G-ratio, diametrical wheel wear, tangential grinding force, grinding power, microhardness, microscopies, and grinding costs. The results’ analysis shows an advantage of using the green silicon carbide grinding wheel, which even in the worst scenario (0.75 mm/min) presented 14.83% less wear, 10.81% less acoustic emission, and consumed 10.18% less grinding power in comparison to the black silicon carbide wheel, with even better results when compared to the white aluminum oxide. Meanwhile, grinding with green silicon carbide wheel produced 9.88% lower surface roughness and 4.80% less roundness error in the worst condition when compared to the black silicon carbide tool. The machining costs with green silicon carbide were very close to those observed in the grinding with white aluminum oxide and the black silicon carbide, corroborating the grinding advantage of the VP50IM mold steel with a green silicon carbide wheel.