Electrochemical cleaning grinding (ECCG) of aluminum alloy 6061 with electroconductive resin-bonded diamond wheels

Abstract A new manufacturing process named Electrochemical Cleaning Grinding (ECCG) is introduced to help reduce wheel loading in grinding of the highly ductile metals which exhibit high adhesion tendency. The key component of the ECCG system is an electroconductive resin-bonded diamond wheel, and its abrasive layer is made of phenolic resin bond and core-shell structured Ni-P alloy coated diamond abrasives. The alloy coating over diamond grains not only helps to increase the bond strength between the resin and the abrasives but improve the electrical conductivity properties of the grinding wheel. During the ECCG process, the abrasives on the wheel surface simultaneously act as micro cutting edges as well as microelectrodes where the anodic dissolution of the adherent metal materials takes place. This dissolution process is defined as “cleaning”. When the rate of accretion of adherent material is balanced by its electrochemical dissolution rate, the sharp abrasives are exposed to carry out efficient grinding, so that better grinding performance can be achieved. The grinding experiments of aluminum alloy 6061 (AA6061) were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the ECCG process. Compared with conventional grinding experiments, the most important changes brought in by the ECCG are the decrease in wheel loading degree and the improvement in machined surface quality. Additionally the electric energy consumption of the cleaning process is relative low and equal from 1.88 × 10−3 J/mm3 to 9.34 × 10-3 J/mm3.