Revealing Patterns in the Wear of Profile Diamond Wheels

The electro-erosive wheel dressing exerts a significant impact on the machining accuracy of an article and the efficiency of the profile grinding process. To effectively control machining accuracy, the most important is the error due to the wear of a diamond wheel. The wheel should be dressed when wear approaches to the border but does not go beyond the tolerance field. This would reduce the number of defects at machining and bring down the utilization of diamonds. In addition, this reduces the dressing time and, therefore, improves the efficiency of profile diamond grinding. The paper reports the methodology and results of an experimental study into the wear of profiled diamond wheels. The specific utilization of diamonds was examined on the grinding wheels of the direct profile. The amount of a wheel linear wear was measured by a contactless method applying a special device based on the use of eddy current sensors. This was followed by determining the integrated amount of the worn volume of a diamond layer; after that, the weight of the used diamonds was measured. The mass of the sanded material was determined by weighing it before and after machining. A mathematical method of planning and analysis of experiments was used to establish the functional dependence of the specific utilization of diamonds on the technological machining modes and the diamond layer parameters. The result of regression analysis is the derived functional dependence of diamond specific utilization on the following factors: the concentration of diamonds in a wheel, the grit of the tool, the grinding wheel velocity, the depth of grinding, and the speed of an article. To determine the patterns of wear of the shaped diamond wheel, we received an imprint of its profile on a control plate made from a solid alloy and measured the coordinates of the points of the working part of the profile relative to the non-utilized areas. Determining the difference of coordinates before and after the experiment has helped find the amount of radial wear of the grinding wheel at the appropriate profile point