Grinding of Soft Steel with Assistance of Ultrasonic Vibrations

Compared to other machining processes, conventional grinding has a low material removal rate and involves high specific energy. A major part of the specific energy in grinding is changed to heat which makes harmful effect on surface quality. A recent and promising method is the use of ultrasonic assistance to increase the material removal rate along with decreasing the thermal damage on the workpiece and reducing cutting forces. The advantages of Ultrasonic Assisted Grinding (UAG) were proved mostly for the brittle material. Our investigations show the improvement on the surface roughness, reduction of the grinding forces and thermal damage in case of using UAG comparing to Conventional Grinding (CG) for a soft material of 100Cr6. The designed and developed ultrasonically vibrated workpiece holder and the experimental investigation show a decrease of up to 40% of normal grinding forces.