Research on constant grinding depth model for cam grinding

In order to mitigate the problems in CNC grinding of a camshaft caused by varying grinding depth along the periphery of the cam, a novel grinding strategy is proposed to keep the grinding depth constant during the process. In comparison with the current cam grinding strategy, analysis results derived from the modelling of the process indicate that it is applicable to keep the grinding depth constant. Consequently, in combination with a constant grinding infeed speed, the material removal rate (MRR) is also kept stable. With the same grinding depth, the volume of removed material in a certain single revolution with the new processing strategy is less than the conventional process. This new strategy can increase the grinding depth without causing grinding burns. Therefore, the total number of grinding revolutions/steps decreases dramatically. Moreover, experiments for comparison of both the single revolution machining and the whole cam grinding have been carried out on a CNC8325B camshaft grinder. The results show that the new process improves machining efficiency dramatically while ensuring the machining quality.