Influences of sawing parameters on forces and energy in wire sawing of granite

An investigation is reported of the influences of sawing parameters on the sawing forces and energy consumption in wire sawing of granite. The relationships between sawing parameters and the average cutting depth of grit (hav) are established. The sawing experiment is conducted on a mini-type wire saw machine and the combinations of sawing parameters are designed by using the one-factor and the orthogonal method. The results show that hav is irrelative to sawing length but increases with the increase in wire feeding speed or decrease in wire peripheral speed. In wire sawing of granite, the influence of wire feeding speed on the sawing forces and sawing power is more significant than that of sawing length or peripheral speed. The granite can be machined by the deformation mode of volume break and properly increasing grit cutting depth is helpful to lowering specific energy consumption. However, the increase of grit cutting depth will reduce the dynamic chip accommodation space between the tool and workpiece, and result in the increase of sawing forces and energy computation due to the chip friction especially in the long sawing length. To control the sawing forces and power, and the dynamic chip accommodation space, the sawing parameters, in particular wire feeding speed, should be properly selected.