2024-11-22
centerless grinding machine-How It Works – Centerless Grinding
Centerless grinding, as the name implies, is a process that grinds the surface of a turned part or round bar of material, without the need to support the work piece on centers.“For grinding round bar stock, a ‘through grinding’ process is used. A bar of material, typically twelve feet long, feeds into the grinding machine between a grinding wheel and a regulating wheel. A carbide-tipped strip of steel, the work blade, supports the bar and holds it at the correct height, above the centerline of the grinding and regulating wheels. This is critical to the roundness and diameter tolerances of the bar. Both wheels rotate. The regulating wheel is slanted up a little from the horizontal. As it turns, it pulls the bar past the grinding wheel, so no external feeding mechanism is required.“Each abrasive grain on the surface of the grinding wheel takes a little bite of material every time it passes the bar being ground. This produces a lot of heat, of course, so the grinding area is flooded with a generous flow of coolant. The regulating wheel does not remove any material. It just presses the work piece against the grinding wheel and controls how fast the bar rotates and how fast it moves past the grinding wheel.“A grinding wheel is made from grains of abrasive material bonded together into a cylindrical shape. Different grinding wheels have different sized grains of different abrasives, different bonding agents and different ‘porosity,’ which is the density or spacing of the abrasive grains and bonding material.