Experiment and numerical simulation study on laser truing and dressing of bronze-bonded diamond wheel

An acoustic-optic Q-switched YAG laser is newly developed for truing and dressing of bronze-bonded diamond grinding wheels through ablation in the radial direction. The laser ablation merges truing and dressing as a single process and can be easily controlled through an online closed-loop control system. The laser truing and dressing characteristics are investigated by wheel surface topography and a highspeed grinding test. A two-dimensional mathematical model is developed to simulate laser truing and dressing of bronze-bonded diamond grinding wheel. Based on the model, the ablation depth produced on bond and diamond abrasives by a pulsed laser under different parameters as well as the temperature field on grinding wheel surface produced in the laser ablation process are numerically simulated. Both the experimental results and the theoretical analysis indicate that the truing and dressing processes can be simultaneously realized with the laser ablation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.