Grooving profile control for structured grinding wheels with picosecond pulsed laser

Ultrafast laser-assisted grooving is adopted to prepare structured grinding wheels with designed patterns. The U-shaped groove profile with steep sidewalls is expected to keep a constant groove width against the wear of grinding wheels. A new grooving method is proposed with reciprocating laser scanning strategy combined with staggered forward and backward traces, respectively, with double pitches offset to isolate the incubation effect of adjacent scanning. The ablation effects of ultrafast laser on abrasives, vitrified bond and grinding wheels SA90JV were examined, respectively, in terms of groove morphologies. The results show that reciprocating scanning can achieve both a U-shaped groove profile and a high-material removal rate as compared with sequential scanning. For grinding wheels SA90JV with aluminum oxide abrasives and vitrified bond, a laser fluence with pulse energy more than 10 mu J will trigger the laser ablation with picosecond pulsed laser of 20-mu m spot diameter. A structured grinding wheel with a diameter of 320 mm and a groove factor of 65% with 1 mm x 1 mm U-shaped slots was successfully developed with a material removal rate of 0.314 mm(3)/s via picosecond pulsed reciprocating scanning. To obtain a smooth grooved bottom, the received energy distribution is controlled in the processing area by adjusting the ratio of laser projection size over the scanning interval and ablation threshold.

Automated summary

Ultrafast laser-assisted grooving is used to prepare structured grinding wheels with designed patterns, achieving a high material removal rate. The reciprocating laser scanning strategy effectively isolates the incubation effect of adjacent scanning, leading to the successful development of a structured grinding wheel with U-shaped grooves.