Experimental and numerical analysis of thermal phenomena in the wear of single point diamond dressing tools

Grinding technologies represent a critical step in the production of high added-value and high precision parts for strategic industrial sectors such as aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and wind generation. Whilst a number of factors related to the grinding wheel are important for optimizing the grinding process, there is no doubt that the wheel surface topography is the most influential factor. Surface topography is induced not only by the nature of the wheel itself, but also, more importantly, by the dressing process. Dressing is periodically carried out in order to recover the abrasive capacity of the wheel once excessive wear of abrasive grits has occurred. The high temperatures and contact forces present in dressing lead to wear of the diamond dressing tool, which in turn damages the topography of the wheel surface. Although the scientific literature has paid attention to the phenomena involved in dressing tool wear, some issues are still in need of explanation. Thus, the aim of the present study was to address the unresolved issue concerning the relationship between dressing temperatures and dressing tool wear. Using a combined empirical and modeling approach, the work reported here shows that temperatures on the surface of the dressing tool can be reduced by as much as 35% when using high conductivity materials in the tool holder. In addition, a methodology has been devised in order to estimate accurate values of the heat partition ratio towards the diamond dressing tool. The results show that the heat partition depends primarily on the dressing mechanism involved. Its values range from 0.97 (when friction between the dressing tool and the grinding wheel prevails) to 0.54 when grain breakage and pull-out occur at higher dressing depths. It has been analyzed and measured the wear suffered by the diamond under interesting designed tests. It has been demonstrated that the effective reduction of temperatures during process led us to take a lower wear rate of the diamond.