Automated Belt Grinding of Axial-Compressor Blades in Gas-Turbine Engines

A Study on the Machinability of Steels and Alloys to Develop Recommendations for Setting Tool Performance Characteristics and Belt Grinding Modes

“…During rough machining, these technological processes ensure the removal of significant stock allowances (up to 400 mm 3 /mm·s) [ 5 , 6 ]. During final and finish machining they ensure that small surface roughness areas Ra (the arithmetic mean deviation of the assessed profile) are removed (up to 0.04–0.02 µm) [ 7 , 8 ] with a high degree of accuracy (up to 0.01–0.10 mm), depending on the grinding pattern [ 9 , 10 ] and the quality of the final machining (residual stresses in the surface layer of up to 60·10 5 Pa at a depth of about 0.01–0.02 mm) [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ].…”

“…It has been established that during grinding with an abrasive wheel disk, there is almost no elastic compression of grains in the process and the cutting depth is determined by the size of the free portion of the grain protruding from the adhesive. The grinding mechanism is different when using an abrasive belt because the belt becomes deformed [ 13 , 14 , 37 , 38 ]. During cutting, only some vertices of the surface profile of the flexible-base abrasive tool come into contact with the machinable surface.…”

“…With “rigid” mounting of abrasive grains, the number of cutting grains is 10–15% of the total nominal number. During grinding with an abrasive belt, the number of active grains increases [ 13 , 39 , 40 , 41 ] due to the elastic properties of the base. With the appearance of elastic deformation and under the influence of heat generation, the adhesive bond undergoes elastic movement (at the molecular level).…”