Cylindrical Grinding

Among of all the grinding machine categories, there are two of the most common ones are surface

and cylindrical grinding. Therefore, a more detailed discussion and description in the next paragraph

will relate to these two types of machines.

Cylindrical Grinding

The operation of cylindrical grinding is carried out on a cylindrical grinding machine as in Figure 6,

either a plain-type grinding machine or the universal-type grinding machine. Cylindrical grinding

process is used to shape the outer surface of a workpiece. This process is mostly used to grind the surface of cylindrical shape workpiece. The surfaces may be straight, tapered or contoured. Cylindrical

grinding operations resemble the lathe-turning operations. These machines replace the lathe in

material removal operation when the workpiece is hardened or when extreme accuracy and superior

finish are required.

Figure 6.Illustration of cylindrical grinding machine and the parts, 2020, Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZH5kpJHBXg/

In cylindrical grinding operation, the workpiece is mounted between two centers. Following

the Figure 6, one center is located on the headstock and the other center is on the tailstock. Both are

rotated and revolved once the machine is turn on. The workpiece centers can transverse at various

feeds so that the entire length of the workpiece passes to the wheel or in front of the wheel.

During the grinding, the workpiece is fed longitudinally against the rotating grinding wheel. As

the workpiece revolves, the grinding wheel which rotates faster in the opposite direction, is brought

into contact with the workpiece. Cylindrical grinders have one wheelhead attached with spindle and

motor. The grinding wheel is attached on the wheelhead; mounted on spindle. To perform the grind

operation, this wheelhead will move to the object or from the object with the help of cross slide.

A grinding wheel revolves at higher speed than the workpiece. The depth of cut for cylindrical

grinding operation is small, for about 0.015 mm. When the entire workpiece has passed in front of the wheel, the wheel advances forward by another 0.015mm at the end of the transverse. The cycle of

grinding is repeat until the desired diameter of the workpiece is reached. The result is a long cylinder

of the perfectly circular profile with 443a very fine surface finish. Following Figure 7 shows the position

of workpiece between centers and how the grinding wheel and cylindrical workpiece rotates during

the cylindrical grinding operation. Figure 8 shows the actual setup of workpiece material on a

cylindrical grinding machine with grinding wheel located near to workpiece to be ground.

Figure 7.Illustration of workpiece and grinding wheel position on cylindrical grinder machine, 2015, Retrieved from https://cadcamengineering.net/types-of-grinding-machines/

Figure 8.Grinding wheel on wheelhead to cut the workpiece with small depth of cut, 2019, Retrieved from https://www.mech4study.com/2019/01/types-of-grinding-machine.html/