The topography of the grinding wheel can be depicted in a control workpiece. For this purpose, a mirroring workpiece angled diagonally to the grinding direction is ground once. Counting the scratch marks, a conclusion can be drawn to the number of active cutting edges per unit surface area. Since the scratch marks of successive cutting edges might overlap each other, it is not possible to determine the overall number of engaged cutting edges [Shaw and Komanduri 1977, Verkerk 1977].
3.3.8 Workpiece Penetration Method
A further method is the penetration of a thin steel plate or a stationary workpiece by the effective area of the grinding wheel. The roughness profile of the ground test piece results from the overlapping of the profiles of the cutting edges active in the removal process. The roughnesses of the test pieces are called specific surface roughness, Rb, end surface roughness, Rtaus, or effective surface roughness, Rw [Karatzoglu 1973, Salje 1975, Fruehling 1976, Weinert 1976, Jacobs 1980,
Gaertner 1982, Rohde 1985, Stukenholz 1988]. These processes are suitable for a comparative assessment of the cutting edge topographies. It is, however, not possible to make any statements on the shape and number of cutting edges [Lortz 1975, Werner 1994].