Strategies for Grinding of PCBN-Inserts

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Thilo Grove, since 7/2016
• Subject Area: Metal-Cutting and Abrasive Manufacturing Engineering
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 285843797

PCBN cutting tools have a high potential regarding machining of iron based materials as well as superalloys. Depending on the application the demands on the tool differ. This leads to a broad variety of PCBN specifications. Due to this, the design of the grinding process of PCBN tools is a high challenge. The final machining of the tools via face grinding is time and cost consuming. The wear of the grinding wheel with respect to the amount of machined material is very high. The current work at IFW Hannover focuses on the influence of the primary process parameters such as cutting speed, feed speed and grinding wheel specification on the grinding wheel wear mechanism and the material separation mechanism. These investigations show that the wear as well as the material separation can be strongly influenced by theses parameters. While grinding the PCBN inserts, depending on the PCBN specification as well as grinding wheel specification, profile wear but also clogging and flattening occur. This leads to a reduction of the tool performance. These wear mechanisms can be reduced by the primary process parameters but they cannot be prevented. To improve the wear behaviour of the grinding wheel, strategies from grinding of cemented carbide tools, such as continuous dressing as well as tool oscillation and inclination of the insert, are known. They offer the possibility to maintain the cutting performance of the tool. Furthermore they enable an increase of the quality regarding cutting edge chipping and surface roughness. Currently there is no knowledge regarding the influence of these strategies and the resulting grinding wheel wear and the insert quality for PCBN available. This project focuses on the investigation of these interrelations on an empirical and semi-empirical basis. Furthermore the interaction of the mentioned strategies will be investigated.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr.-Ing. Berend Denkena
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr.-Ing. Jens Köhler, until 7/2016