Improving grinding performance by controlling air flow around a grinding wheel

In grinding, high specific heat is generated, and hence, appropriate control of temperature through effective flow of grinding fluid is necessary to obtain a quality ground surface. It is known that in conventional fluid delivery method, most of fluid is wasted due to presence of a stiff air layer around the grinding wheel. This air layer is generated around the wheel due to the rotation of the porous grinding wheel at a high speed. To improve grinding performance, hence, penetration into this air layer is required.In this work, a pneumatic barrier set-up has been developed for controlling the stiff air layer around the grinding wheel. The formation of stiff air layer has been studied experimentally by measuring the variation of air pressure around grinding wheel periphery at different parametric conditions of pneumatic barrier. This pneumatic barrier tends to break the stiff air layer before the fluid flow area or grinding zone. A remarkable amount of reduction in pressure of the air layer is observed at the fluid flow zone. To observe beneficial effects of suppressing the air layer, grinding experiments are performed under dry, flood cooling and flood cooling with pneumatic barrier setup. Reduction of grinding forces and surface roughness are clearly observed with the use of pneumatic barrier setup, and hence, its applicability.

► A pneumatic barrier set-up is developed to control the stiff air layer around the wheel.
► A remarkable amount of reduction in of stiff air layer pressure is observed.
► Substantial reduction of grinding forces and surface roughness are observed.