Diamond abrasive based cutting tool for processing of advanced engineering materials: a review

The use of abrasives for grinding was first noticed in ancient Egypt in 2000BC. Quartz was the only abrasive known at that time. Further, emery, garnet and diamond were used as the other abrasive materials for grinding as per the need of various manufacturing processes. Diamond has been recognized as an alternate to various other available abrasive materials for grinding and finishing processes in last two decades. The machining of advanced materials such as titanium alloys, nickel alloys, heat treated steel, high strength temperature resistant alloys etc, resulted in the development of new machining processes, known as hybrid machining processes. These processes involve various new tools such as metal bonded diamond grinding wheel, diamond drill bits etc. and these are most widely accepted nowadays by the researchers in micro-machining field. In present paper, attempts have been made to do an exhaustive review of various advancements in the machining technology using the diamond abrasive based tools. Diamond abrasive tools are widely being used by various researchers in hybrid machining processes such as EDDCG, EDDFG, EDDSG, ECDG, ECDD etc. This paper illustrates the history of diamond abrasives and its use in recent advancements in the manufacturing technology till now with an overview of various manufacturing methods of the diamond abrasive based tools. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.