Effects of working parameters on the surface roughness in belt grinding process: the size-scale estimation influence

This paper outlines a new method to evaluate roughness parameters considering the scale used for their evaluation. Application is performed for grinding hardened steel with abrasive belts. Seven working variables are considered through a two-level experimental design. For all configurations, 30 surface profiles were recorded by tactile profilometry and rectified by a first degree B-spline fitting before calculating a set of current roughness parameters. The relevancy of each roughness parameter, to highlight process parameters influence, is then estimated for each scale by variance analysis. The results show that each influent input parameter is characterised by a related relevant evaluation length.