Digital design and performance evaluation of porous metal-bonded grinding wheels based on minimal surface and 3D printing

Porous metal-bonded grinding wheel is in great demand but hard to realize with traditional fabrication process. In this article, a novel design and fabrication method of porous metal-bonded grinding wheel is proposed based on minimal surface and 3D printing. With this novel method, numerous interconnected pores and liquid channels can be realized for metal-bonded grinding wheel. Schwarz P, Schwarz D and Schoen I-WP minimal surfaces are adopted to construct the porous structures of grinding wheel. The formability is investigated for 3D-printed binder-abrasive composite and 3D-printed wheel porous structure. The mechanical properties of wheel porous structure are evaluated based on experiment and finite element method. The grinding performance of 3D-printed grinding wheel is evaluated and compared to the electroplated wheel. Results indicate that the pore morphology and mechanical performance of wheel porous structure can be controlled by design parameters. Moreover, grinding wheels with well-bonded abrasives and well-formed pores can be realized by 3D printing. Finally, the excellent grinding performance of 3D-printed grinding wheel proves the effectiveness and advantages of proposed novel design and fabrication method.