title = "Surface and Cylindrical Grinding Operations"

content = """
Grinding uses a bonded abrasive wheel to remove small amounts of material at high cutting speeds, producing very tight dimensional tolerances and fine surface finishes that cannot be achieved economically by turning or milling. At Ridgecrest Metalworks, grinding is a key finishing operation for hardened components, precision shafts, flat reference surfaces, and cutting tools.

Surface grinding machines a flat surface by traversing the workpiece under a rotating grinding wheel. The workpiece is typically held on a magnetic chuck (for ferrous parts) or in a fixture (for non-ferrous or complex parts). The wheel removes material with each pass; the wheel is incrementally down-fed (in-fed) between passes until the final dimension is reached. Wheel face width, grain size, bond hardness (grade), and structure are selected based on workpiece material, required finish, and material removal rate. Common surface grinder parameters: wheel speed 3,000–6,000 SFM, table traverse speed 20–100 FPM, down-feed per pass 0.0005–0.003 inch.

Cylindrical grinding machines round external diameters. In between-center cylindrical grinding, the workpiece is mounted on centers and rotates slowly (workpiece speed 50–150 SFM); the rotating grinding wheel traverses along the workpiece while plunging to reduce diameter. In plunge grinding, the wheel plunges directly into a specific zone without traverse—used for shoulders, radii, and formed profiles. Internal cylindrical grinding (ID grinding) uses a small-diameter wheel inside the bore; the wheel spindle speed is very high to achieve required SFM with the small wheel.

Wheel dressing and truing are essential maintenance operations. Dressing uses a single-point diamond dresser or rotary diamond roll to restore the wheel's geometric form and refresh sharp cutting grain by breaking away dulled abrasive particles. A poorly dressed wheel glazes (loses sharpness), causing vibration, increased grinding forces, heat generation, and surface burn or grinding cracks in the workpiece.

Grinding burn and residual stress are critical defects. Excessive heat from aggressive infeed, dull wheel, or insufficient coolant can temper the hardened surface zone of a part, destroying hardness, or can produce tensile residual stresses that promote fatigue cracking. Acid-etch inspection (Barkhausen noise or Temper Etch per ASTM F2639) is used to detect grinding burn on critical aerospace and automotive components.
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version = "0.0.1"
