Effects of Actively Cooled Coolant for Grinding Ductile Materials

Abstract

An active cooling approach for coolant during ductile material grinding is proposed and examined. The aim is to enhance surface quality and to enhance productivity. The problem associated with the cryogenic cooling approach and the one with the chilled air approach are addressed. An active cooling prototype was developed utilizing a compact heat pump design, which is easy to use, movable, and can be easily fitted into different type of machine designs with relatively low costs. The system is based on the use of forced convection of the heat generated during the machining process. Experimental and computational studies of the effects of actively cooled coolant for grinding ductile materials are carried out. The experimental results show that the use of actively cooled coolant is able to improve surface quality by up to 29.95% on average in terms of surface roughness Ra. Computational testing results show that the heat can be taken away more effectively by using the proposed approach. The results of optical and SEM examinations also confirmed that the proposed approach is advantageous.