Saint-gobain Abrasives, Inc.

Saint-gobain Abrasifs

Dimensional Control, Inc.

Cool-grind Technologies, LLC

John A Webster

Krishnamoorthy Subramanian

Stephen R Gardner

Peter Caputa, Iv

A programmable coolant nozzle system and method for grinding wheel machines. The system comprises a fluid manifold block that automatically or manually follows the wear of the grinding wheel, to position coolant jets tangential to the wheel surface throughout the life of the grinding wheel. The positioning is by an arcuate motion, through a parallelogram mechanism, to ensure that the coolant jets remain at the same angle to the grinding wheel surface throughout the entire range of motion.

Programmable coolant nozzle system for grinding

A nozzle assembly and method is configured to apply coherent jets of coolant in a tangential direction to the grinding wheel in a grinding process, at a desired temperature, pressure and flowrate, to minimize thermal damage in the part being ground. Embodiments of the present invention may be useful when grinding thermally sensitive materials such as gas turbine creep resistant alloys and hardened steels. Flowrate and pressure guidelines are provided to facilitate optimization of the embodiments.

Coherent jet nozzles for grinding applications

A method of producing a complex shape in a workpiece includes the steps of: i) grinding a workpiece at a maximum specific cutting energy of about 10 Hp/in&#xb7;min with at least one bonded abrasive tool, thereby forming a slot in the workpiece; and ii) grinding the slot with at least one mounted point tool, thereby producing the complex shape in the slot. The bonded abrasive tool includes at least about 3 volume % of a filamentary sol-gel alpha-alumina abrasive grain having an average length-to-cross-sectional-width ratio of greater than about 4:1 or an agglomerate thereof. A method of producing a slot in a metallic workpiece having a maximum hardness value of equal to, or less than, about 65 Rc includes the step of grinding the workpiece with a bonded abrasive tool at a material removal rate in a range of between about 0.25 in/min&#xb7;in and about 60 in/min&#xb7;in and at a maximum specific cutting energy of about 10 Hp/in&#xb7;min.

Method for grinding complex shapes

Coherent jet nozzles for grinding application

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Storrs, CT, United States of America

John A Webster