The objectives of this Engineering Initiation Award research project are to evaluate the performance of grinding of superalloys and aerospace alloys with superabrasives, to quantify the surface integrity of the ground components, to obtain limit charts for work- burn, power and surface finish, and to obtain an off-line optimization strategy which would meet the surface integrity requirements dictated by work-burn, surface finish and machine tool limitation in terms of power. The plan is to conduct grinding experiments while measuring the grinding forces, spindle power, grinding wheel wear, surface roughness and depth of the heat affected zone, and to analyze and model the results. Limit charts will be developed for workpiece speed, wheel speed and feed rate by keeping work-burn, power and surface finish as constraints. Such limit charts will be used in developing simple off-line optimization strategies for maximizing the material removal rate by avoiding thermal damage and maintaining necessary surface finish.
