Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation of the Intermittent Feed High-Speed Grinding of TC4 Titanium Alloy

Abstract

This paper proposes intermittent feed high-speed grinding, which shows considerable advantages in terms of reducing grinding temperature, relieving grinding wheel blockage and improving workpiece surface integrity. In this grinding, the continuous feed mode of the workpiece is changed into the normal feed + fast retreat reciprocating feed mode by a fast linear feed worktable. By reasonably setting the normal feed distance of single grinding, the action time of the grinding wheel and workpiece is reduced, so that the grinding heat transfer process does not reach a stable state, reducing the grinding temperature during single grinding. Besides this, the surface temperature is cooled to nearly room temperature and the grinding wheel is flushed by the timely retreating of the grinding wheel to allow the grinding fluid to enter the grinding zone fully, which greatly reduces the phenomenon of heat accumulation and grinding wheel loading. An intermittent feed high-speed grinding experiment on Ti-6Al-4V (TC4) titanium alloy was systematically carried out, and the influence of the grinding parameters on grinding force and grinding temperature was deeply analyzed. The instantaneous grinding temperature field and thermal stress field of TC4 titanium alloy in intermittent feed high-speed grinding were constructed with the finite element method. The surface morphology of the grinding wheel and TC4 titanium alloy specimens after intermittent feed grinding were analyzed and were compared with those after traditional continuous grinding. It was found that the curves of the grinding force and temperature varied with time in the process of machining, consisting of many “pulse” peaks. Under the same grinding parameters, the magnitude of the grinding force is the same as that of continuous grinding. In a certain range, the grinding temperature is greatly affected by the single feed distance and the interval time. The numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, and the error is controlled within 12%. Compared with traditional high-speed grinding, under the same process parameters, the grinding temperature is greatly reduced, the surface integrity of the workpiece is better, and the clogging of the grinding wheel is greatly reduced.