Unit 1: Abrasive Machining and Finishing Operations [07 Hours]

Introduction; Abrasives and Bonded Abrasives: Grinding Wheels, Bond Types, Wheel Grade
and Structure; Grinding Process: Grinding-wheel wear, Grinding Ratio, Dressing, Truing and
Shaping of Grinding Wheels, Grindability of Materials and Wheel Selection; Grinding
Operations and Machines, Finishing Operations

Grinding Operations and Machines

Introduction

Grinding is a metal cutting operation like any other process of machining removing of metal in
comparatively of smaller volume. The cutting tool used is an abrasive wheel having many
numbers of cutting edges bonded on it. The machine on which grinding the operation is
performed is called a grinding machine.
Grinding is done to obtain very high dimensional accuracy and better appearance or surface
finish. The accuracy of grinding process is 0.000025mm. The amount of material removed
from the work is very less.

Objectives

After studying this unit, you should be able to

• provide excellent quality of surface finish to the surface,
• impart high quality of accuracy of shape and dimension,
• finishing of hardened metallic surfaces,
• sharpening of cutting edges of cutting tools,
• maintaining tool geometry of cutting tools,
• flattening and forming of surfaces,
• finishing of castings by removing impressions of sprues, risers, parting lines, etc., and
• removal of scales and burrs, etc.
Types of Grinding
1. Rough Grinding - It involves removal of stock without any reference to the accuracy of
results. Generally, rough grinding is followed by precision grinding.
The rough grinding machines are used to remove stock with no reference to the accuracy of
results.
 Excess metal present on the cast parts and welded joints are removed by rough grinders.
The main types of rough grinders are:
1. Hand grinding machine
2. Bench grinding machine
3. Floor stands grinding machine
4. Flexible shaft grinding machine
5. Swing frame grinding machine
6. Abrasive belt grinding machine
2. Precision Grinding - Precision grinding removes negligible amount of metal. It is used to
produce finished parts and accurate dimensions
Precision grinders are used to finish parts to very accurate dimensions. The main types
of precision grinders are:
1. Cylindrical grinding machines
2. Internal grinding machines
3. Surface grinding machines
4. Tool and cutter grinding machines

5. Special grinding machines

3. Cylindrical grinding machine
Cylindrical grinders are generally used to grind external surfaces like cylinders, taper
cylinders, faces and shoulders of work. There are two types of cylindrical grinding
machines and they are
1. External cylindrical grinding machines
2. Internal cylindrical grinding machines.
4. Surface grinding machines
Surface grinding machines are employed to finish plain or flat surfaces horizontally,
vertically or at any angle.
There are four different types of surface grinders. They are:
1. Horizontal spindle and reciprocating table type
2. Horizontal spindle and rotary table type
3. Vertical spindle and reciprocating table type
4. Vertical spindle and rotary table type
 Depending on the geometry of workpiece and the position at which workpiece is to be
grind, it can be categorize as external grinding, internal grinding, surface grinding, form
grinding and centreless grinding.
On the basis of position of mounting of a grinder it can be categorized as floor stand
grinder (which can be installed on the ground); bench grinder, hand grinder, etc.
On the basis of position of spindle, it can be categorized as horizontal spindle
environment in which the operation of grinding is done the grinding operation is
classified as dry grinding and wet grinding. When cutting fluid is spread over the
workpiece, wheel face and sides, it is named as wet grinding.
Grinding machine operations
The process of grinding is the operation of removing excess material from metal
parts by a grinding wheel made of hard abrasives. The following operations are
generally performed in a grinding machine.
1. Cylindrical grinding
2. Taper grinding
3. Gear grinding
4. Thread grinding
1 Cylindrical grinding
Cylindrical grinding is performed by mounting and rotating the work between
centres in a cylindrical grinding machine. The work is fed longitudinally against the
rotating grinding wheel to perform grinding. The upper table of the grinding machine is
set at 0° during the operation.
2 Taper grinding
Taper grinding on long workpieces can be done by swivelling the upper table. If the
workpiece is short, the wheel head may be swivelled to the taper angle. Another method
of grinding external taper is to true the face of the grinding wheel by a diamond tool
dresser to the required angle. In this case, the table and the wheel head are not
swivelled.
3 Gear grinding
The teeth of gears are ground accurately on gear grinding machines for their shape.
Gear grinding is done by the generating process or by using a form grinding wheel. The
generating process makes use of two saucer shaped grinding wheels. These wheels are
used to grind two faces of successive teeth.
 4 Thread grinding
Thread grinding machines are used to grind threads accurately. The grinding wheel
itself is shaped to the thread profile. These formed grinding wheels have one or multi
threads on them.
Grinding wheel
A grinding wheel is a multi-tooth cutter made up of many hard particles known as
abrasives having sharp edges. The abrasive grains are mixed with a suitable bond,
which acts as a matrix to manufacture grinding wheels.
According to construction, grinding wheels are classified under three categories.
1. Solid grinding wheels
2. Segmented grinding wheels
3. Mounted grinding wheels
Grinding Wheel Parameters
1. Type of Abrasive material
2. Grain size
3. Wheel grade
4. Wheel structure
5. Bonding material
Abrasives
Abrasives are used for grinding and polishing operations. It should have
uniform physical properties of hardness, toughness and resistance to fracture.
Abrasive may be classified into two principal groups.
1. Natural abrasives
2. Artificial abrasives
Natural abrasives
The natural abrasives are obtained from the Earth’s crust. They include sandstone,
emery,
corundum and diamond. Sandstone is used as abrasive to grind softer materials only.
Emery is natural alumina. It contains aluminium oxide and iron oxide. Corundum is also a
natural aluminium oxide. It contains greater percentage of aluminium oxide than emery.
Both emery and corundum have a greater hardness and abrasive action than sandstone.
Diamond is the hardest available natural abrasive. It is used in making grinding wheels to
grind cemented carbide tools.
Artificial abrasives
Artificial abrasives are of two types.
1. Silicon carbide abrasives
2. Aluminium oxide abrasives
Silicon carbide
Silicon carbide is manufactured from 56 parts of silica, 34 parts of powdered coke, 2 parts
of salt and 12 parts of sawdust in a long rectangular electric furnace of the resistance type
that is built of loose brick work. There are two types of silicon carbide abrasives - green
grit and black grit. Silicon carbide is next to diamond in the order of hardness. But it is not
tough enough as aluminium oxide. It is used for grinding materials of low tensile strength
such as cemented carbides, ceramic materials, grey brass, bronze, copper, aluminium,
vulcanized rubber etc.
This is manufactured under trade names of carborundum. It is denoted by the letter ‘S’.
Aluminium oxide
Aluminium oxide is manufactured by heating mineral bauxite, silica, iron oxide, titanium
oxide, etc., mixed with ground coke and iron borings in arc type electric furnace.
Aluminium oxide is tough and not easily fractured, so it is better adapted to grinding
materials of high tensile strength such as most steels, carbon steels, high speed steels, and
tough bronzes. This is denoted by the letter ‘A’.
Grain Size (Grit Size)
Abrasive materials are crushed in ball mills to obtain grains of different sizes. The grain
size is represented by a number which indicates the number of holes per linear 25 mm (one
inch) in the sieve used to size the grains. This means, larger the sieve number the finer the
grains
Sieve No. Type of Grain
10-24 Coarse
30-60 Medium
70-180 Fine
220-600 Very Fine
Bond Materials
A grinding wheel gets its shape by bond material, which also holds abrasive grains
together. Various types of bond materials are used in making grinding wheels for different
purposes. These bond materials are vitrified (V), silicate (S), shellac (E), resinoid (B), resinoid
reinforced (BF), oxycloride (O), rubber (R), and rubber reinforced (RF). The letters within
parentheses are used to indicate the bond material on marking of a grinding wheel. Some of
these bond materials are discussed below.

Vitrified (V)
Vitrified (V) bond is also known as ceramic bond, and it is a commonly used bond
material. It is made of clay, feldspar, quartz, talc, chalk and silicate of soda. These
wheels have high strength and porosity but they are unaffected by the presence of water,
acids, etc. These wheels are brittle, and they are weak in mechanical and thermal shock.
These wheels are suitable for high production rates.
Silicate (S)
Silicate (S) bond has low hardness, and is water glass hardened by baking. It is used in
making large sized grinding wheels and not used for precision grinding, but good
enough for sharpening cutlery knives, and carpenters’ chisels like tools.
Shellac (E)
Shellac (E) bond is used for making grinding wheels for heavy duty, large diameter
wheels especially for fine finish and cool cutting. These wheels are used for finishing
mill rolls.
Resinoid (B)
Resinoid (B) bond wheels are strong and flexible, but are used for cutting at high
speeds and comparatively low temperature. These wheels are used for dressing of
castings and also as cut-off wheels. These wheels are made of bakelite
(synthetic/organic resin). These wheels are affected by alkaline cutting fluid, and
temperature higher than 180°C. Addition of graphite filler to the resinoid would
improve upon surface finish of the ground surface.
Rubber (R)
Rubber (R) bonded wheels are flexible and hard, and are made of hard vulcanized
rubber. These wheels are used like saw for cut-off operation, and as a control wheel in
centerless grinding operation.
Metal (M)
Metal (M) bonded wheels are commonly used in the advanced machining processes like
electrochemical grinding, and electric discharge grinding, and for diamond cutting.
These wheels are made by using powder metallurgy techniques and use mostly CBN or
 diamond abrasives. The abrasives are bonded to the periphery of a metal wheel, up to
the depth of 6 mm or less. Bonding is carried out under high pressure and temperature.

Grade
Indicates the strength of the binding material.
When the work material is hard, the grains wear out easily and the sharpness of the
cutting edges is quickly lost. This is known as WHEEL GLAZING.
To avoid this problem, a soft wheel should be used
Soft: A to H
Medium: I to P
Hard: Q to Z
The grade of a wheel should be carefully selected according to the type of the work
material. Too hard a wheel will generate excessive heat resulting in softening of the
workpiece, and too soft wheel will be uneconomical (due to excessive wear of grinding
wheel), and poor dimensional accuracy
Structure:
The relative spacing occupied by the abrasives and bond is referred to as structure.
1 -8: Dense structure b) 9-15: Open structure
Dressing
To make the glazed or loaded wheel serviceable, the wheel must be dressed and trued.
To remove blunt abrasive grains from the bond, to fracture the blunt grains to generate
or expose sharp new cutting edges, and to remove embedded foreign matter from the
grinding wheel.
Truing:
Truing is done to make the periphery of the wheel concentric with its axis and to make
its side true and this way to recover the lost shape of its face.
Balancing
A grinding wheel should be accurately balanced to avoid any accident and to obtain
accurate ground parts. Out-of-balance wheel would produce vibration and a pattern on
the finished surface, and finally may lead to the damage of the spindle bearings. The
balancing operation can be carried out in two ways (static balancing and dynamic
balancing).
Selection of Grinding Wheel
During the selection of a grinding wheel for particular application following points are
considered,
Workpiece material,
Workpiece requirements (in terms of tolerances, surface finish, etc.),
Type of operation to be conducted,
Grinding conditions and type of grinder to be used.
As a rule of thumb, a soft grade wheel is recommended for the grinding of hard
materials to facilitate self sharpening action of the wheel, while relatively harder wheel
is advised for softer materials to be ground so that larger MRR can be achieved.
Further, if workpiece-wheel contact area is small, wheel wear rate will be low, and if
large contact area, wheel wear rate will be high. It is also recommended to use a close
structure wheel on hard brittle material, but a more open structure wheel for soft ductile
material.
A coarse grain wheel gives rapid stock removal and rough finish, while a fine grain
wheel yields low MRR and fine finish. MRR is influenced by the method of dressing of
the grinding wheel. Bonding material should provide sufficient strength to resist various
forces acting on the grinding wheel.
Grinding Ratio
Grinding ratio is defined as the volume of material removed from the work per unit
volume of wheel wear.
G = Volume of material removed / Volume of wheel wear
Grindability of Material
Grindability refers to the ease with which a material can be ground down into smaller
particles.
Finishing Operations
Surface finish is achieved from the last operation performed on the part, and this
operation is known as finishing operation
Traditional Finishing Processes
1. Honing
2. Lapping
3. Superfinishing
 4. Polishing
5. Buffing
6. Burnishing
Honing:
Honing is used to obtain fine surface finish on internal and external cylindrical surfaces,
and flat surfaces of the workpieces, which may be metallic or non-metallic in nature.
Honing operation is treated as finishing (or final) operation, which may correct the
errors
like out-of-roundness, taper, or axial distortion, which might have developed in the
preceding machining operation.
Lapping:
Lapping is employed when the surface finish to be achieved must be better than that
achievable in grinding and honing. It is employed to achieve high dimensional
accuracy, correcting minor imperfections in shape, and to achieve a close fit between
mating surfaces. But it is more expensive operation than grinding and honing. During
lapping, loose suspended abrasives in a vehicle are sandwitched between a lap (usually
made of soft material) and the workpiece.
Light pressure is applied between them and the two surfaces move relative to each
other in a random fashion. As a result, workpiece abrades and tends to attain
approximately the shape of the lap.
Polishing
It is also a finishing operation, and removes scratches, tool marks, pits and other defects
by cutting action. Polishing wheels are made of leather, wool, or canvas having abrasive
grains set up with glue or thermosetting resin on the wheel. The workpiece is held
against the wheel, and latter is rotated at about 50 m/s peripheral speed. Polishing may
be done manually or by machine.
Buffing
Buffing is similar to polishing with the difference that in buffing very fine abrasives are
used on soft disks made of cloth. The abrasive grains in a suitable carrying medium like
grease are applied at suitable intervals to the buffing wheel. Polished parts may be
buffed
to obtain an even finer surface finish.