Babic_Torrance_Murray.doc-TARA-TrinityCollegeDublin.docVIP

SOAP MIST JET COOLING OF GRINDING PROCESSES D.M. Babic, A.A.Torrance and D.B.Murray Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Keywords: Grinding, cooling, air jets, water mist, soap. Abstract. Grinding, like other abrasive processes, may generate high local temperatures along the arc of cut. These can cause various forms of surface damage in the most sensitive finishing phase of the manufacturing cycle. Traditional cooling methods based on large amounts of water-oil emulsions can be both ineffective and environmentally unacceptable. A new approach to this problem has been devised utilizing the high penetrative power of fast air jets combined with a water/soap mist to greatly improve convective cooling and lubrication along the arc of cut. The results obtained offer striking improvements compared to traditional liquid coolants especially if the relative simplicity of the method is considered. Introduction Grinding, in its primitive form, is one of the oldest manufacturing processes know to man. It is typically used as a finishing operation intended to achieve high dimensional accuracy and excellent surface quality. Despite for long being considered as just a finishing operation with little metal removal involved, new grinding methods are, more and more, examples of an “all in one” type of machining operation. Procedures such as HEDG (High Efficiency Deep Grinding) and HSPG (High Speed Peel Grinding) allow for both major metal removal and surface finish of workpieces with complex geometry to be completed in a single operation on a single machine [1]. Grinding still accounts for about 25% of all of machining swarf in the industrialized world [2]. The specific energy in grinding is usually much higher than in traditional cutting processes such as turning or milling. This is because the process of metal removal in grinding, as in all abrasive methods, is fundamentally different to that of traditional metal cutting. In turnin