Grinding performance evaluation of 3D-printed porous metal-bonded grinding wheel in BK7 glass grinding

Grinding performance-oriented proactive design is hard to realize by conventional hot-pressing sintered grinding wheel, because the internal micro-structure of grinding wheel is relatively enclosed, resulting in wheel clogging and surface burn of workpiece. This paper adopts triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) to design the controllable micro-structure of the grinding wheel, and numerous interconnected pores and liquid channels can be constructed with the novel design method and 3D printing to control the grinding performance. The grinding performance is comprehensively evaluated based on the grinding experiment of BK7 glass. By comparative analysis of the novel and conventional electroplated grinding wheels in grinding force, specific grinding energy, workpiece surface morphology, and wheel wear, the influence mechanisms between the micro-structure design parameters and grinding performance are investigated. The experimental results indicate that the shape scale of the micro-structure is the main factor that affects the fluctuation of grinding force and surface roughness, and the stiffness and effective area of the micro-structure are the main factors that affect average grinding force and specific grinding energy. Compared with the electroplated grinding wheel, the proposed novel grinding wheel has smaller grinding force, specific grinding energy, and has obvious superiority in wear resistance and self-sharpening capability.