Grinding wheel wear and material removal mechanisms during grinding of polycrystalline diamond

Grinding is a widely used technology in the manufacturing process of polycrystalline diamond (PCD) cutting tools. Due to the high hardness of PCD, the process efficiency of grinding is low. In order to improve the process efficiency, an increased understanding of the interactions between the grinding wheel and the PCD workpiece has to be gained. Therefore, the subsurface material behavior during grinding of different PCD specifications was conducted in this article. To attain this, a screening of process input parameters was done to identify the thermal and mechanical load during grinding. The PCD workpieces ground by the preidentified parameters were then analyzed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to examine the subsurface material behavior. Based on the results of the TEM analysis, explanatory models for the material removal mechanisms and the grinding wheel wear were developed.