Axial rotating heat-pipe grinding wheel for eco-benign machining: A novel method for dry profile-grinding of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

摘要

Sustainable grinding is one of the development directions of modern processing. When profile grinding titanium alloys, since the grinding burn-out is easy to happen, a large amount of cooling fluid is commonly used for cooling the grinding zone. However, the cooling fluid is harmful to human health and is neither economical nor efficient. Given that, a method of dry profile-grinding Ti-6Al-4V alloy to achieve environmentally-friendly machining was proposed in this article. An axial rotating heat-pipe profile grinding wheel (HPGW) was designed and manufactured, not only to eliminate the harmful cooling fluid; but also to augment heat transfer in the grinding zone and control the grinding temperatures. By developing this HPGW, a sustainable grinding process will be achieved with less resource utilization, less environmental and health issues, less energy consumption, and carbon emission. The design methods of HPGW were put forward through comprehensive consideration of the sonic limit, heat transfer and structural strength requirements. Then, the design was checked by FEM simulation. Moreover, experiments were conducted to investigate the influences of the filling ratio, rotational speed, and material removal rate on the heat transport performance of HPGW. The Ti-6Al-4V alloy profile structure was successfully dry ground by this HPGW. Results reveal that the temperature of the ground surface was controlled below 80 degrees C and temperature difference on the profile surface was within 10 degrees C. The novel HPGW with desirable heat transfer performance can be applied in the metal processing industries, and it is a promising candidate for sustainable grinding of titanium alloys.