Surface performance control and evaluation of precision bearing raceway with wireless sensing CBN grinding wheel

The precision machining process caused by material removal and wear behavior is called grinding. Grinding force and grinding temperature (GF>) in precision/ultra-precision grinding directly affect the surface performances. In this study, the metamorphic layer, element content, hardness, residual stress and retained austenite of the finished thin-walled rolling bearing of rotary vector (RV) reducer were analyzed. Instead of the traditional method of indirect collecting GF>, a wireless sensing cubic boron nitride (CBN) raceway grinding wheel (WS-CBN-RGW) with embedded force and temperature sensors was innovatively designed. The hardness, residual stress and retained austenite of the grinding surface were analyzed. With the increase of bearing raceway diameter, the thickness of “dark layer” decreases. The innovative design of WS-CBN-RGW solves the problem that GF> of bearing raceway are difficult to be collected directly. The ideal hardness, residual stress and retained austenite content can be obtained by controlling grinding parameters. After performance control, the raceway hardness, tangential and axial residual stress and residual austenite dispersion are reduced by 63.6 %, 34.6 %, 74.9 % and 31.5 %, respectively. Therefore, the problem of performance control can be solved by controlling GF>.