An experimental investigation on surface layer damage in high-efficiency and low-damage grinding of rail by slotted CBN grinding wheel

Rail grinding is an important part of rail maintenance. However, the processing efficiency of rail grinding by corundum grinding wheel is low due to the limitation of grinding thermal damage. In this work, a slotted single-layer brazed CBN grinding wheel is used to repair the rail surface replacing corundum grinding wheel, because the CBN abrasive has better heat conduction performance, and the slot structure can reduce the heat transferred workpiece. The influence of grinding parameters on the grinding forces, temperature, ground surface quality (e.g., surface roughness, surface microstructure, subsurface hardness, and subsurface damage) is investigated compared with the corundum grinding wheel. Results showed that the slotted single-layer brazed CBN grinding wheel possesses a better surface roughness and lower surface damage depth and can improve the grinding efficiency of the rail by seven times.