Investigation of subsurface damage considering the abrasive particle rotation in brittle material grinding

Brittle materials are prone to brittle fracture which is a primary mechanism of material removal in grinding process. Subsurface damage (SSD) strongly affects the quality of grinding surface which is necessary to be evaluated in brittle material grinding. In this paper, the theoretical analysis of SSD is presented in detail considering the effect of abrasive particle rotation along with the wheel. With the increasing rotation angle of abrasive particle, both the median and lateral cracks incline gradually. Moreover, SSD could disappear below the final grinding surface when the rotation angle of abrasive particle reaches a certain critical value. In addition, the grinding depth, the wheel diameter, and the ratio of wheel speed to workpiece speed influence the rotation angle of an abrasive particle; the effects of these parameters on SSD depth are also studied in detail by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. The larger wheel diameter and the larger ratio of wheel speed to workpiece speed can obtain a smaller SSD depth, but the effect of grinding depth is unapparent due to the kinematic characteristics of the grinding process. The results are meaningful and helpful in predicting SSD depth and selecting the reasonable grinding parameters to obtain a good surface quality in brittle material grinding.