One method which is frequently employed because of its flexibility is profiling with silicon carbide grinding wheels. This method can be used for all dressable bond types and is especially popular for profiling diamond grinding wheels. The basic forming mechanism is based on the abrasive effect of silicon carbide on the grinding wheel bond. Here, the abrasive grains are not machined. Rather, it is primarily the grinding wheel bond which is removed so that the grains fall out and new sharp cutting edges are opened up.
While dressing with a SiC-wheel, this is either slowed down or sped up. To produce the required profile the SiC-wheel is moved along a corresponding track. Beyond this, there is also the possibility of working with profiled SiC grinding wheels, in which case they are continuously dressed with a diamond roller. For profiling with silicon carbide grinding wheels, the low dressing tool costs are countered with long operating hours, which is why this dressing process can only be executed effectively for machining systems with low machine-hour rates [LIEB96, SPUR95, UHLM99]. Qualitative problems, such as loss of contour ac
curacy, appear because of the high wear of the SiC dressing tool [ARDE02, SPUR95a, WIMM95].
Further profiling methods, which also work without diamond grains, are the roll-2-dress method and profiling with long-chipping steel. In this case, we take advantage of the abrasive effect of steel on the wheel’s bond.