Effects of Actual Dressing Depth of Cut of Corundum Wheels and Grinding Speed Ratio on Workpiece Surface Quality and Lead Pattern

Dressing is a critical step in grinding operations, essential for restoring the wheel’s cutting ability and maintaining surface accuracy throughout production. During rotary dressing, dressing forces may cause the actual dressing depth of cut to deviate from the commanded value, modifying the wheel surface and affecting the subsequent grinding process. This study investigates the influence of the actual dressing depth of cut —estimated from experimentally measured normal dressing forces—on workpiece surface quality ( Pt, Sa, Sz ) and lead pattern depth Dt when dressing corundum wheels with rotary CVD dressers. Experimental tests were conducted under varying dressing peripheral speed ratios ( q d ) and overlap ratios ( U d ), combined with integer and non-integer grinding speed ratios ( q ns ). Measured dressing forces were used to estimate the effective dressing depth of cut, which was then incorporated into a previously developed three-dimensional kinematic model of rotary dressing and cylindrical plunge grinding. Simulations performed with and without force-based depth correction were compared against experimental results. The results show that neglecting dressing forces results in systematic deviations in the prediction of surface quality and lead pattern depth, particularly at low overlap ratios, whereas incorporating a force-corrected dressing depth improves the agreement between simulated and experimental results. Furthermore, the influence of the grinding speed ratio on surface quality is shown to diminish as the overlap ratio increases. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for dressing forces when modelling dressing–grinding interactions and provide experimental validation of a force-informed kinematic approach for predicting workpiece surface quality and lead pattern formation.