Effect of grain contents of a single-aggregated cubic boron nitride grain on material removal mechanism during Ti–6Al–4V alloy grinding

Abstract Aggregated cubic boron nitride (AcBN) grains were developed by sintering monocrystalline cBN (McBN) grains and inter-abrasive metallic phase. The sintering parameters, including sintering temperature and dwelling time, and volumetric proportions of McBN grains are optimized and correlated with the fracture strength of AcBN grains. Quantitative characterization of the grain and scratches were tracked based on the 3D reconstruction technique to study the grain wear characteristics and material removal ability of AcBN grains. The grinding performance for different AcBN grain types, including grinding force, force ratio, volumetric pile-up ratio and volumetric groove removal rate were investigated. Experimental results indicate that the optimized sintering parameters are 800 °C with a dwelling time of 10 min. The AcBN grains with 90% volumetric proportion of McBN grains possess the more stable grinding force ratio and grain wear rate, better self-sharpening ability, and higher grinding ratio. In addition, the material removal efficiency tends to decline and then increase due to the self-sharpening characteristics through the analysis of the volumetric pile-up ratio regardless of AcBN grain types.