IM (Indentation Method) Based Impact Fracture Characteristics of cBN Crystal and Their Influence on High Speed Wheel Performance

Cubic Boron Nitride (cBN) is considered a superabrasive due to its excellent material behavior, and is commonly used in the manufacturing of high end grinding tools, in particular for machining hard-to-machine materials, in order to achieve high productivity in combination with high precision. During the actual grinding process, the performance of grinding tools is significantly affected by the fracture response of employed cBN crystals to the external impact load related to the grinding speed. Therefore, two types of cBN crystals are selected in this paper and their fracture resisting behaviors are measured under various impact loading rates through the Indentation Method (IM). In order to establish the fracture behavior of cBN crystals and the overall grinding performance of cBN wheels, high speed surface grinding experiments are conducted and grinding performances are evaluated regarding the evolution of grinding force and power consumption, wheel wear and grinding efficiency, as well as the chemical stability of cBN materials on affinity. The experimental results show a good agreement of cBN crystal's impact fracture properties on the cBN grinding wheel performance, which helps to understand cBN crystal's high speed grinding characteristics.