Thermal Modelling of Wire Electro Discharge Trueing and Dressing of Fine Grained Metal Bonded Diamond Grinding Wheels

Fine grained metal bonded diamond grinding wheels with a high profile constancy and wear resistance can be used efficiently for the precision machining of cemented carbide or ceramic tool inserts. For an efficient trueing and dressing operation Wire Electro Discharge Machining (Wire-EDM) can be applied. Due to the thermal material removal principle, heat is locally applied to the grinding wheel surface. Depending on the amount of heat conduction of the involved materials the fine diamond grains can be thermally damaged. This paper presents a first approach in order to simulate the thermal impact on the diamond grains by modelling the resulting temperature distributions during and after single discharges. An indirect model validation is done by a comparison with experimental results.