What Is Grinding?
Definition of Grinding
Grinding is the cutting action of thousands of sharp abrasive grains on the face of the grinding wheel rotating at high speed.
Grinding Characteristics
Grinding has the following characteristics, compared to cutting.
Features & Benefits
■Grinding can easily remove hard or brittle materials, which are difficult to remove by cutting tools.
Thousands of quite hard mineral grains on the face of the grinding wheel can easily grind cemented carbides and porcelain.
■Required surface roughness and accurate dimensions can be easily obtained.
Each grain of abrasive acts as a microscopic single-point cutting edge, and the grinding wheel rotates at high speed.
As a result of this, it produces a great amount of tiny chips.
Therefore, better finishes and more accurate dimensions can be achieved compared to cutting tools.
■High metal removal rate
The peripheral speed of grinding wheel is 10 ～ 80 m/s, which is dozens of times the speed of cutting tools.
Therefore, although each chip is tiny, it achieves high metal removal rate.
■Self-sharpening of cutting edges
As grinding proceeds, cutting edges wear and grinding force increases, which contributes to cleavage or dropping of abrasive grains.
Threrefore, grinding wheels require to be resharpened unlike cutting tools.
■Grinding generates large amount of heat, which causes burn and crack.
The temperature of grinding point easily exceeds 1,000℃.
Therefore, in order to prevent burn and crack, it is necessary to cool heat by the coolant.
■High speed rotation
Grinding wheels may burst during operation, which may result in fatal accidents.
Therefore, they must be handled, mounted, and used carefully, and with adequate protection, according to safety requirement.