0PTIMIZATION OF VITRIFIED GRINDING WHEELS BALAJI, VS.

Department Of Ceramic Technology, AC College Of Technology Anna University Under the guidance of

Prof. Dr. V. Kamaraj EXTENDED ABSTRACT Abrasive particles are used to cut or abrade other materials. They are generally harder than the materials to be machined. By virtue of its shape and hardness abrasive particles remove unwanted materials by means of chips or particles from objects. Use of abrasives is grouped into three categories bonded, coated and free abrasives. Bonded abrasives are held together by a bonding agent to form grinding wheel. Coated abrasives are adhered to paper and cloth in the form of grinding belts. Free abrasives are suspended in a fluid medium for polishing or tumbling. It was not until the nineteenth century that synthetic abrasives began to replace the natural abrasives of sandstone, crocus rouge, emery, corundum and diamond. Natural abrasives are generally contains impurities and varies in quality. Synthetic abrasives are, however, pure, consistent and can be carefully controlled. The most common artificial abrasives are aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, cubic boron nitride (CBN) and synthetic diamond. Aluminum oxide and silicon carbide are used together over 90 % of the abrasive machining applications. Grinding wheels are classified into four major types. i.e. Vitrified grinding wheels, Resin bonded grinding wheels, Rubber bonded Grinding wheels, and Metal bonded grinding wheels. Vitrified bond is made up of clay or feldspar which fuses at a high temperature to form a glassy like structure. During the firing operation, melting of the clay or feldspar takes place and which bonds the abrasive grains leading to a homogenous structure. When the wheel cools, each grain is surrounded by a hard glass like bond which has high strength and rigidity. These vitrified wheels are used for high precision grinding applications. The major problem involved in the production of vitrified grinding wheel is to produce wheels up to customer the specification. The rejection of wheels is very high due to manufacturing defects and hence production cost is also high. Inorder to alleviate the above problems, as an experiment blue fired gains are incorporated to the vitrified grinding wheel composition. This partially replaces the aluminum oxide used in the grinding wheel composition. Blue fired grains are nothing but the grains recovered from the rejected wheels due to defects present in it. These grains are obtained by crushing the rejected wheels. Since it is obtained from the rejected wheels it is expected to reduce the production cost and increases the production rate of the grinding wheels. Grinding wheels produced by this process are expected to show better performance at a lower cost. Various compositional batches of raw materials were taken inorder to evaluate

and compare the performance of grinding wheels produced with blue fired grains. Batch 1 contains 87 % of aluminum oxide as abrasive grains. Batch 2 contains combination of aluminum oxide and blue fired grains. The Amount of Blue fired grains is 35% and aluminum oxide is 52 %. Batch 3 is also combination of aluminum oxide and blue fired grains but 37 % and 50 % respectively. Batch 3 has got higher percentage of blue fired grains. General fabrication process sequence is raw materials batching, mixing of raw materials, cold-pressing, drying, firing, finishing and inspection. Preparing grinding wheel raw material batching begins selecting the precise quantities of abrasive grains, binder material and additives according to the type of wheel and its application. Water based wetting agents are added as additives to coat the abrasive grains. This coating improves the grain adhesion to the binder. Cold press is done in the range of 100-5000 pounds/s.i for 10 to 30 seconds by hydraulic press. After the pressing the green compact, it is removed from the mould and drying was done at 120C. Firing is done to improve the strength of the green compact. A wide range of furnaces and kilns are used to firing the grinding wheels, and temperature very depending upon the type of bond used in the grinding wheels. Results from the grinding lab are tabulated below OUTER INNER THICKNESS WEIGHT VOLUME DENDITY Batch DIAMETER DIAMETER No mm mm mm gm c.i gm/c.i 1 300.4 127 12.78 1682 45.41 37.04 2 300.25 127 12.97 1570 46.03 34.10 3 300.3 127 13.13 1612 46.62 34.58 Batch Grinding Ratio Material Removal Grain density Fired density No Rate mm3/sec gm/c.i gm/c.i 1 2 3 2.59 1.70 2.84 4.88 4.64 5.06 39.4 36.5 35.5 37.04 34.10 34.58

From the results it is evident that the fired density matches the grain density factor with increase in the amount of blue fired grains. These blue fired grains have got higher density. Since it has recovered from rejected wheels it is coated with a layer of bond during firing of the wheel. Hence batch 3 is almost matches the grain density factor than batch 2.Batch 3 has got higher material removal rate and grinding ratio than other batches. The wheels made from the batches of higher percentage of blue fired grains shows better performance. As a result of optimization the vitrified grinding wheels made from the batch 3 has got higher grinding efficiency and can be used for higher precision grinding process. Since blue fired grains are recovered from the rejected wheels, the price of these grains is very less than the standard grains and hence production cost is also very less. Due to its low cost and better performance these wheels are able to draw the attention of customers in the market.