Creeping Ahead

摘要

Creep-feed (CF) grinding has emerged as the primary choice for several grinding applications and is also an effective alternative to milling, based on part quality and consistency and cost per cut. Traditional surface and profile grinding processes take shallow cuts using rapid traverse speeds. At the end of each pass in these processes, the grinding machine infeeds the part about 0.0003" and repeats the next traverse, so the wheel is constantly exiting and entering the workpiece. Each entry is a small collision, degrading wheel sharpness and form. Also, the wheel is frequently cutting air in reversal mode. Depending on part length, this nonproductive time can equal the time the wheel is in contact with the part.