Surface topography prediction of slider races using formed grinding wheel shape and material removal mechanism

Compared with the roughness, the three-dimensional (3D) topography parameters, surface microstructure geometric characteristics and other information can more fully evaluate the grinding quality of the slider raceway surface. In this paper, based on the 3D topography model of the abrasive particle distribution on the surface of the formed grinding wheel, the material removal mechanism between the abrasive particle and the raceway surface is analyzed. With the undeformed chip thickness distribution model as the intermediate variable, the 3D topography model of the slider raceway surface is established, and the model verification is carried out from the roughness and the geometric characteristics of the surface microstructure, respectively. At the same time, the surface microstructure is extracted from the topography model, and the effects of different grinding process parameters on the geometric characteristics such as the height to width ratio, depth to width ratio and distribution density of groove, convex peak and peak valley structures are studied. Results are shown that A_S,T_H increase from [0.05 0.6 μm] to [0.25 0.8 μm] and FG_H grows from [0.11 1.05 μm] to [0.5 1.61 μm] when the grinding depth rises from 1 μm to 4 μm. A_S, T_H are firstly decreased from [0.17 0.61 μm] to [0.08 0.52 μm] and then increased to [0.26 0.78 μm], and the FG_H declines from [0.34 1.01 μm] to [0.16 0.86 μm] and then increases to [0.51 1.38 μm] with the feeding speed is in [25, 28 m/min]. In addition, in the range of grinding wheel linear velocity [28, 34 m/s], the A_S,T_H decreases from [0.19 0.81 μm] to [0.1 0.55 μm] and the FG_H decreases from [0.55 1.6 μm] to [0.2 1.1 μm]. This can prepare for the subsequent research on the impact of the topography characteristics on the friction coefficient and wear amount of the slider raceway surface.