Improvement of lubrication and cooling in grinding

Abstract

The presence of air boundary layer around a grinding wheel impedes the proper entry of cutting fluid into grinding zone and thereby lubrication and cooling are hampered. It leads to the thermal damage to the workpiece and rapid wheel wear. This experimental work is aimed at increasing the lubrication and cooling effects in grinding by a novel method of using scraper board. The experiments are conducted, using the scraper board, to find the critical region where the air pressure is zero. The coolant jet has then impinged into the grinding zone which is maintained within the critical region. The requirement of specific energy, surface texture, and mechanical properties of the ground surface are analyzed and compared with the traditional grinding and the grinding at various positions of scraper board. Results show that the grinding ratio improved by 35.6and 119%, surface roughness decreased by 36 and 54.2%, while the requirement of specific energy is reduced by 50.8 and 57.3% when scraper board is positioned at the critical distance in comparison to the 57.5° position and no scraper board, respectively. The results indicate that the introduction of fluid in the present method can improve the process efficiency and the product quality effectively.