Common trends in grinding technology are tighter form and size tolerances, smaller surface roughness, engineered surface textures, higher productivity, and smaller process costs [KRAF08]. There is a natural trend towards higher grinding wheel speeds and higher grinding performance [KREB06].
New products and new applications demand for adjusted tools designs. The tool user demands for higher bonding strength of vitrified bonding bridges, as well as harder and more porous vitrified bonds [KRAF08, KREB06]. This can happen through recrystallization or embedding of disperse particles, leading to new production steps for vitrified bonding in the areas of bonding preprocessing or sintering technology [KREB06].
9.2.2 Developments in Tool Design
9.2.2.1 Engineered Tools
The grinding tool can be designed to be similar to a milling tool with defined distances between the grits (Fig. 9.5) [OKAM78]. Grinding wheels with defined grit distribution and defined grit orientation reduce the randomness in grinding [WEBS04]. Hand set superabrasive grits allow for a defined grit pattern on grinding wheels [AURI03]. In the case of grinding belts, oriented grits have been used for decades.
Burkhard and Rehsteiner [BURK02] developed a brazing technology to produce single-layer tools with arranged grits. Honing tools with a single layer of CBN grits in a defined pattern were applied successfully in single-stroke operations on case-hardened steels, and showed a 10 fold increase in tool life [BURK02].
For glass grinding, Brinksmeier et al. [BRIN12] successfully applied coarse-grained, single-layered, metal-bonded diamond grinding wheels. Both stochastically distributed and placed diamond grits were used. After dressing, the favorable ductile removal mode and optical surface quality were achieved [BRIN12].
The workpiece surface finish is a strong function of the axial offset between adjacent rows of grits in an engineered tool [KOSH03]. Aurich and Kirsch [AURI12] give a recent overview on simulation for engineering tools.