GRINDING:

Grinding can also considered as a machining process i.e. process of

removing metal but in smaller volume as compared with other
machining process.
To grind means TO ABRADE to wear by FRICTION or TO
SHARPEN
In grinding the material is removed by means of rotating abrasive
wheel. In this process, the material removal in the form of small chips
by mechanical action of ABRASIVE particulars bonded together in the
grinding wheel.

Grinding Wheel & Workpiece interaction

Grinding Wheels
Grinding wheel consists of hard abrasive grains called
grits, which
perform the cutting or material removal, held in the weak
bonding
matrix.
A grinding wheel commonly identified by the type of the
abrasive
material used.

THE SPECIAL FEATURES OF GRINDING PROCESS

ARE
(GRINDING HAS FOLLOWING ADVANTAGES)
Abrasive are mineral crystal with harden much higher
than that of work piece.
Grinding wheel has self sharpening character.
This means that dull or worn out grains of the grinding
wheel during the operation are removed either by
fracture or teasing of the bond which result into
exposure of fresh new grains.
The grain geometry is highly random and the time
between the chip and an abrasive grain is very small.
The effective rake angle of abrasive grains is highly
negative.

Grinding Wheels
The conventional wheels
include
Aluminium oxide and
Silicon carbide wheels

while Diamond and CBN

(cubic boron nitride) wheels
fall in the category of
superabrasive wheel

Grinding Wheel &

Workpiece interaction

ABRASIVE:
An abrasive is a substance which is hard material used for
grinding and polishing operations. These are small particles
bonded together in different shapes, size of grinding
wheels.
ABRASIVE MAY BE CLASSIFIED IN TWO PRINCIPLE
GROUPS:
Artificial
Natural
1. Natural: Following are the natural abrasives.
A) Sand stone or solid quartz
B) Emery
C) Corundum
D) Diamond

ARTIFICIAL: These days, almost all grinding wheels

made of artificial abrasives because there
composition can be controlled and quality will be
better. These artificial abrasives, grinding wheels
possess better cutting properties and higher

Artificial Abrasives:
These abrasives include:
Aluminium oxide,
silicon carbide,
Diamond (pure form of carbon),
boron carbide and cubic boron nitride.
The manufactured abrasives have well defined and controlled
properties of hardness, toughness and type of structure.
Aluminium Oxide:
Aluminium oxide, Al2O3 abrasive is composed chiefly of crystalline
aluminium oxide.
It is obtained by melting material rich with this oxide (bauxite ore which
is mainly
aluminium hydroxide) in an electric furnace.
Iron chips and coke are added to combine with and remove the
impurities.
The refined aluminium oxide comes out from the furnace in a large
lump called a Pig.
It crashed and rolled in to small grains.
Then this treated magnetically to remove the ferrous impurities and

Properties:
Aluminium oxide is is softer than silicon carbide.
It is tough and not easily fractured.
It is extensively used for grinding materials of high tensile strength
such as most steels, H.S.S., ferrous alloys, non-ferrous cast alloys and
annealed malleable and ductile iron.

Silicon Carbide:
This is a chemical compound of silicon and carbon. It is
produced by fusing quartz sand and powder coke in electric
furnace.
Sawdust and salt are also added to the said mixture. In the
furnace at the temperature around 2300o C, The silicon sand
combines with carbon of the coke to form silicon carbide.
The sawdust burns and leaves pores to let the gases escape.
The salt helps remove impurities.
After the process has run, the furnace is cooled.
The core of loosely knit silicon carbide crystal are broken into
individual grains.

Two types of silicon carbides are available:

Pure silicon carbide of green variety and black or grey.
Green silicon carbide is better abrasive than black silicon carbide.
Both these silicon carbide have a higher hardness than artificial
aluminium oxide. Being extremely brittle, SiC is not recommended for
grinding hard material.
Silicon carbide wheels are used for grinding non-ferrous metals, nonmetallic elements and cast irons.
EFFICIENCY OF ABRASIVE PARTICLES: Depends on
1.

Purity
2. Uniformity in composition
3. Hardness
4. Toughness:
If this is not tough, the abrasive particles will fracture readily and wheel wear will be
excessive.
5.Sharpness of fracture: The better cutting action is obtained by sharp edged
abrasives. The natural abrasive give rounded edges and are therefore not efficient in
cutting.

CUTTING ACTION IN GRINDING:

From this fig. it is clear that
wheel
consists
of
abrasive
particles bounding material and
voids. The projecting abrasives
particles act like a cutting tool
tips and remove metal.
A properly selected grinding
wheel exhibits self- sharpening
action.
As cutting proceeds, the abrasive
particles at the cutting edge
become dull and eventually these
become cracked along the planes
due to resistance offered by work
piece material which resists the
cutting action.
The process continues till the
abrasive grains get worn down till
the level of bond.

Grain or Grit:
The term Grain or Grit denotes the approximate size of the
abrasive particles and gives an idea of the coarseness of
fineness of the grinding wheel.
A grinding may have the abrasive particles of the same size or
different sizes. The farmer is known as straight wheel and the
latter compound wheel.
The choice of grain size or grit depends upon many factors viz.
quality of finish required, the amount of stock material to be
removed and physical properties of the material to be ground.
The coarse grit wheels will remove the stock at a
faster rate and finer finish will always required a finer
grit.
Coarse grit wheels are more suitable for grinding soft
and ductile materials. Finer grit wheels are suitable for
hard ad brittle materials.
The grit or grain size of an abrasive is denoted by a
number representing the number of meshes/inch of
the screen through which the grain of crushed
abrasive are passed for grading.

The following are standard numbers representing different grains sizes are:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Grit Designation
Coars
Medium
Fine
Very fine

Grain size or Grit No.

10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 24
30, 36, 46, 54, 60
80, 100, 120, 150, 180
220, 240, 280, 320, 400,
500, 800

First three are used in grinding work and 4th one is used in honing work

MANUFACTURING OF GRINDING WHEELS:

The abrasive particle are first crushed to powder form and passed
over magnetic separators for removing iron impurities.
Then these are washed with water to remove foreign elements like
dust etc. then with chemical compound to grease.
The particles are then graded according to their grain size by
passing through proper sieves.
Abrasive particles are then mixed with proper bonding material (the
bonding material is based on abrasive and the process used ) and
moulded in proper shape.
After drying it, it is backed (heating). After baking the binding
material holds the particles together.
It is then cut and given a final shape.
It is tested for crash, leakage and balance.
Tight control during manufacturing in terms of density control, mix
flow and geometrical accuracy result in more uniform and consistent
wheel.

BOND MATERIALS OR BOND (BONDING PROCESS)

OR
MOULDING PROCESS:

In order to give an effective and continuous cutting action. It is necessary that the
grains of abrasive material should be held firmly together to form a series of
cutting edges.
The material employed for holding them is known BOND The main bonds are:
1. Vitrified 2. Silicate
3. Oxychloride
4. Resinoid 5. Shellac
6. Rubber

VITRIFIED BOND:
It is a clay bond.
The basic material is FELSPAR which is fusible clay.
The flux and refractories are added to it and mixed thoroughly.
This mixture together with the abrasive grains is fed into revolving drums
containing water.
After mixing it become paste.
The paste is then placed in moulds to get the shape of the wheel
and air dried at room temperature.
Now, these wheels fed into a klin and allowed them to remain there
for a few days at 1260 degree C.
This process is known as fusing.
After this wheels are trimmed to the required size.

Advantages:
It is made porous wheel and enable quicker material removal.
It is not effected by water, oil, acid or climatic condition.
The bond is very hard and acts as an abrasive also.
The structure of the wheel is uniform due to wet mixing of the
different constituents.
Dis-advantages:
The process of manufacturing is very slow.
Crack may develop in large size wheel during fusing.
Proper control during fusing becomes difficult.
High temp. in the kiln tends to make the abrasive grains
weak.

SILICATE BOND:
Its basic material is silicate of soda.
The process of making the bonds is the same as in the case of vitrified
bond but here the oven carries a temp. of about 260 degree C.
This low temp. help in fairly high tensile strength.
Wheels possessing this bond are light grey in colour.
Advantages:
It is a more rapid process than vitrified bond.
Because of moderate temp. there is no tendency to weaken the grains.
When wet grinding is performed with these wheels the soda acts as
lubricants.
The cutting action of the wheel is smoother and cooler.
Dis-advantages:
Extra hard wheels can not be produced with this bond.
Harder grades of this bond do not provide a free cutting action .

OXYCHLORIDE BOND:
It is mixture of oxide and chloride of magnesium and setting in cold
state.
The process of manufacturing is similar to the above two but NO
HEATING but cooling is required on account of cold setting hardness.
The bound provides cool cutting action, but grinding is usually done
dry.

RESINOID BOND:

These wheels are manufactured from a mixture of abrasive grains,

synthetic resins and some compounds.
This mixture is filled in moulds and then fed into the furnace at 200
degree C.
After this shape and size thus produced.
It is synthetic organic compound, which is enough strong and flexible.
It provides sharp cutting action and enables a high rate of stock
removal at high speeds.
Resinoid bonded wheels are vastly employed for cutting bar stocks,
fine grinding of cams, precision grinding of rolls etc.

SHELLAC BOND:
Shellac bonded wheels are produced by mixing the bond and the abrasive grains
in a steam heated mixes.
After this mixture is moulded under pressure in steam heated moulds.
These wheels are cool cutting and are vastly used on hardened tool steel and thin
section.
They also help in producing high surface finish.
They can run safely in water but use of oil or caustic soda should be avoided.

RUBBER BOND:
It is composed of hard vulcanized rubber.
The process consists of passing of rubber and sulphur through the mixing rolls
and adding the abrasive grains slowly as the above two constituents pass through
the roll.
Adding of abrasive grains continues till the required proportion is achieved.
The mixture is passed through another set of rolls to obtain the required
thickness.
The wheels are then cut and placed in pre-heated moulds and vulcanized under
pressure.
These wheels are very strong. They are mainly used where a very high class
surface finish with close dimensional accuracy is a primary requirement.

Selection of Grinding Wheel:

The proper selection of grinding wheel is very important for getting good result.
Selection mainly depends upon the following factors.
Constant Factors
Variable Factors

CONSTANT FACTORS:
Work material: If the work material hard then the soft grinding wheel is used
and vise-versa.
Amount of material to be removed.
Condition of grinding machines: The softer grade of wheel is used on robust
and heavy machine.
Finish and accuracy required on the job.

VARIABLE FACTORS:
Wheel Speed
Work Speed
The following are the details as to how the various factors influence
the choice of wheel based on above factors.
The work material will influence the following element.
1.Abrasive Material
2.Grain size or Grit Number
3.Grade (Strength of bond)
4.Structure
ABRASIVE:
The choice of right abrasive determine by the type of material to be
ground. SiC is the best suited abrasive for brittle and hard materials e.g.
Grey cast iron, iron castings, tungsten carbide, hard steel, porcelain and
other ceramic substances.
This is also used for low tensile strength materials e.g. Bronze, Brass,
Copper, Aluminum.
Where Al2O3 is used for tough material having high tensile strength like
mild steel, tough bronze, wrought iron etc.

GRAIN SIZE:
For softer material use coarse grain size and for harder material use
fine grain size.
The coarser grain is used for high rate of material removal.
The fine grain is used where the surface finish is important.

GRADE:
The hard materials and materials having high strength offer more
resistance to the wheel.
If the hard grade of wheel is used then wheel will get blunt soon.
Therefore, better result on such materials, the abrasive particles should
breaks and fall quickly.
For softer material high or harder grade i.e. good bond is used.

STRUCTURE:
This represents the void between the abrasive and is influenced by
the work material.
If the material is harder then dense structure is desirable.
For softer materials, the open structure is prescribed as the rate of
metal removal is high and the size of the chip is also long.
The structure is denoted by number from 1 to 15 or so.

Wheel speed offers the grade to a considerable extent and for higher wheel speed, soft
grade wheel should be used.
If the higher work speed it is desirable to use harder wheel and vise-versa.
Condition of Grinding: In dry grinding condition with hard wheel the heat generation is
more and thus soft wheel is required and vise-versa.
The affects of various working parameters on grinding wheel:

PARAMETER
EFFECTS
Large work speed v
More wheel
wear
Large wheel speed V
Reduce wheel
wear
Large value of N
Reduce wheel
wear
Larger depth of cut td
More wheel
wear
Larger wheel diameter
Reduce wheel
wear
Large work diameter
Reduce wheel
wear
The above parameters can be justified if we write the maximum chip formula:
D Diameter of cylindrical wheel.
d diameter of cylindrical work piece
td depth of cut

Specifications of Grinding Wheels

Compositional specification
Type of grit material
Grit size
Bond strength of the wheel, commonly known as
wheel hardness
Structure of the wheel denoting the porosity i.e. the
amount of inter grit spacing
Type of bond material
Other than these parameters, the wheel
manufacturer may add their own identification code
prefixing or suffixing (or both) the standard code.

Specifications of Grinding
Wheel
Prefix

Grain
Type

Grain
size

Aluminium Oxide
(A )
Silicon Carbide
(C)

Grad
e

Wheel
Structur
e

A-G:Soft
H-P:Medium
Q-Z:Hard

10-24: Coarse
30-60: Medium
80-180:Fine
220-600:Very fine

Bond
Type

B:Resinoid
E: Shellac
R: Rubber
S: Silicate
V: Vitrified

1-4:Dense
5-8:Normal
916:Open

ALPHNUMERIC SYSTEM FOR GRINDNG WHEEL

SPECIFICATION

Suffix

Specifications of Grinding Wheels

A 60 K 5 V
The letter A denotes that the type of abrasive is
Aluminium oxide. In case of silicon carbide the letter
C is used.
The number 60 specifies the average grit size in
inch mesh. For a very large size grit this number
may be as small as 6 where as for a very fine grit
the designated number may be as high as 600.
The letter K denotes the hardness of the wheel,
which means the amount of force required to pull
out a single bonded abrasive grit by bond fracture.
The letter symbol can range between A and Z, A
denoting the softest grade and Z denoting the
hardest one.
The number 5 denotes the structure or porosity of
the wheel. This number can assume any value
between 1 to 20, 1 indicating low porosity and 20
indicating high porosity.

The operating faults in grinding wheel

And
Trouble shooting (How to remove them)
There are two common faults which occur with grinding
wheel.
(i) Glazing
(ii) Loading
GLAZING:
After continuous use of the grinding wheel the sharp points
(cutting points) of the abrasive grains become DULL.
They lose their cutting ability and sharpness and are worn-out.
Due this, this wheel face becomes smooth and it instead of
biting (penetrating) into work material, gives a sort of rubbing
action only.
The above phenomenon, which makes the un-useful, is called
GLAZING of grinding wheel.

Causes of GLAZING:
This is due to incorrect dressing.
Wrong wheel selection
Using slow traverse and high work speed.
Remedies of GLAZING:
Keeping the wheel sharp
Selection of the wheel should be correct i.e. use of softer wheel
or coarser grit must be decided as per the material to be ground.
Reducing the wheel speed.

Loading:
Another problem associated with the grinding wheel in operation is the
adherence (attached) of the cut particles of the work material to the face of
the grinding wheel.
These particles occupy the open space between the cutting points.
Due to this, the sharpness of the cutting point is lost and the face
becomes, smooth depriving the wheel of its cutting ability.
This phenomenon is known as LOADING OF WHEEL and the effected
wheel is called LOADED WHEEL.
CAUSES:
Forcing the cut too fast.
Forcing the cut too deep.
Using the wheel to grind material softer than for which it is suited.
REMEDIES:
Fine grained and soft bonded wheel do not load as readily as opposite
wheel.
Increase in speed may help to affect a cure.

TRUEING AND DRESSING OF THE GRINDING WHEELS:

Produced surface cannot be truer than the trueness of the
grinding wheel producing it.
It is also known as that full cutting capacity of the grinding wheel
cannot be used if its periphery has been dull or got clogged with
some foreign material.
Due to these reasons the operation of truing and dressing is
performed.
The truing operation is done to make the periphery of the wheel
concentric with its axis, make its sides true and to recover the lost
shape of its face.
Dressing of the wheel is done to recover the proper cutting action
of the wheel face by removing the layer of drilled grains or grains
clogged with foreign material.
How many times a wheel is to be trued or dressed will depends
upon the type of the work, operators skill and wheel fitness.

The following the common devices used for dressing of grinding

wheel.
W heel dressers
Abrasive sticks
Abrasive wheels
Diamond dresser
Crush dressing fixture
WHEEL BALANCING:
In order to get a good surface finish, prevent vibrations and
chatter and void undue wear on machine parts, it is necessary that
the grinding wheel should have good balance before it is used.
Larger the diameter of the wheel and higher the operating speed
more important is the balancing.
Balancing is done in the static position of the wheel by shifting the
position of the weights on one of the flanges of the wheel.
The wheel is mounted on a suitable mandrel or arbor and arbour
and placed on balancing fixture for finding out the direction in
which the weights are to be shifted.

GRINDING WHEEL WEAR OR OCCURANCE ATTRITION AND

FRACTURE OF THE ABRASIVE GRAINS:
VOLUME OF WORK MATERIAL REMOVED

Grinding Ratio Defined, G =

VOLUME OF WHEEL WORN AWAY

This is employed to adjudge the wear and performance

characteristic of grinding wheel.
The large volume of G would signify easier grinding where as, the
low volume would mean poor grind ability.
There are various factors which effect the grinding wheel.
e.g.
2v
tmax. = td
VN

D x td
;
dxD

PARAMETER
Large work speed v
Large wheel speed V
Large value of N
Larger depth of cut td
Larger wheel diameter
Large work diameter

EFFECTS
More wheel wear
Reduce wheel wear
Reduce wheel wear
More wheel wear
Reduce wheel wear
Reduce wheel wear

WEAR MECHANISM OF GRINDING WHEEL:

If wheel wear is plotted against the volume of work material removed, refer
above fig.
Here that the wear curve is quite similar to that of the other cutting tool.
Also, there is an initial breakdown period followed by a region of uniform wear
rate.
Finally, the wheel again starts breaking down rapidly.
The middle zone is the real usable which determines the life of the wheel.
Once the period of uniform wear rate ends, the wheel should be reconditioned
before using it again.
The reconditioning of a wheel is done by a process commonly known as wheel
dressing.

THERMAL ASPECT OF GRINDING:

It is observed that most of the energy supplied during grinding is
converted in to heat.
A good portion of the total heat energy passes on to the chip, work
and the grinding wheel. Because the chip is very small and poor
thermal properties of the total heat going to them is rather small.
It means the surface temperature of the work piece can be very high.
This high temperature leads to development of thermal stresses in
the work piece and also thermal cracking.
This HIGH TEMPERATURE PROMOTES ATTRITION and
FRACTURE of the abrasive grains. The surface temperature in
grinding is proportional to specific grinding energy.