Evolution of undeformed chip thickness and grinding forces in grinding of K4002 nickel-based superalloy using corundum abrasive wheels

The undeformed chip thickness and grinding force are key parameters for revealing the material removal mechanism in the grinding process. However, they are difficult to be well expressed due to the ununiformed protrusion height and random position distribution of abrasive grains on the abrasive wheel surface. This study investigated the distribution of undeformed chip thickness and grinding force considering the non-uniform characteristics of abrasive wheel in the grinding of K4002 nickel-based superalloy. First, a novel grinding force model was established through a kinematic-geometric analysis and a grain-workpiece contact analysis. Then, a series of grinding experiments were conducted for verifying the model. The results indicate that the distribution of undeformed chip thickness is highly consistent with the Gaussian distribution formula. The increase in the grinding depth mainly leads to an increase in the average value of Gaussian distribution. On the contrary, the increase in the workpiece infeed speed or the decrease in the grinding speed mainly increases the standard deviation of Gaussian distribution. The average and maximum errors of the grinding force model are 4.9% and 14.6% respectively, indicating that the model is of high predication accuracy.