Engineered wheels for grinding of optical glass

This paper focuses on the evaluation of topographical parameters characterizing the influence on the behaviour and finally the process results by applying engineered diamond wheels in machining hard and brittle materials. Here, coarse-grained, single-layered diamond grinding wheels with electroplated abrasive layers and active-brazed, defined grain pattern have been dressed by a special conditioning process and used in precision grinding experiments on optical glass. The characterization of the abrasive layer topography was done by two topographical parameters, the specific total grain plateau area A'(G,total) and the average grain cutting edge width b(G,a), determined by 3D-profilometry of replicated abrasive layers after each dressing step. (C) 2009 CIRP.