Abstract
Cast iron bonded diamond (FC-D) grinding wheel is now used for ceramics grinding due to its high performance. The grinding mechanism is investigated experimentally by the measurement of grinding force in rather slow wheel speed and the observation of wear behaviours of abrasives. Main results are : (1) The grinding mechanism of the cast iron bonded grinding wheels resembles that of the metal bonded diamond wheel but the wheel deformation is small and drops of abrasives are not so often in FC-D wheel even under the heavy duty grinding, because the wheel stiffness and holding strength of abrasive are both very high. (2) It is possible to use the FC-D grinding wheel under the condition of flat topped abrasives. In this case, though the grinding force becomes higher, the roughness of ground surface is improved and the grinding ratio is high. (3) When the protrusion amount of abrasives from bonding surface is not enough, the sparking phenomena occurs by the direct contact between bond material and ceramics in heavy grinding and this leads to dressing effect.
