Application of Lubrication Theory to Fluid Flow in Grinding: Part II—Influence of Wheel and Workpiece Roughness

Abstract

The objective of this study is to model fluid flow in grinding with nonporous wheels. While Part I focused on the flow in a simplified smooth geometry, in this part the wheel surface roughness is introduced. The applicability of the modified Reynolds equation for laminar flows between rough surfaces is verified experimentally in terms of the developed hydrodynamic pressure, using a resin-bonded diamond grinding wheel. The experiments were performed under the spark-out condition (i.e., with the wheel just touching the workpiece) and in actual grinding. Agreement between theory and experiment is shown for Re<100, but a significant discrepancy (most likely due to turbulence) is observed for 300<Re<1500.