Thermal Aspect of Wear of Diamond Abrasive Grain in Grinding Mild Steel

Abstract

The wear mechanism of the diamond grain in grinding is discussed with emphasis on the case of grinding mild steel. The simulated grinding test with single-grit technique makes it possible to evaluate quantitatively the wear of diamond for various materials and the anisotropy in the wear. The following conclusions are obtained by comparing the amount of wear in the grinding with that of erosion in diffusion test.
Diffusion of carbon is also observed in carbon steels (0.25% and 0.55%) and the carbon film over the surface of contact in diamond. With the grinding test, it is shown that the greater wear is observed in the <110> directions than in <100> on the {100} planes of the diamond cutting point in combination with the steel workpiece of the lower carbon steel. The results in grinding test agree with the estimation by calculation for the diffusion and the graphitization of diamond. In grinding mild steel, the wear mechanism of the diamond grain is fundamentally the same as that in the case of iron, then the effective application of diamond wheels to mild steel will be achieved by controlling the thermal conditions of grinding.