Effect of Electroplastic-Assisted Grinding on Surface Quality of Ductile Iron

Abstract

Ductile iron is a heterogeneous material. The presence of spherical graphite and a hard and brittle structure makes the surface of the workpiece easily form pits and crack defects under harsh grinding conditions, which seriously affects the service life and service performance of the workpiece. The new assisted grinding process based on the electroplastic effect is expected to avoid the surface defects of ductile iron. By comparing the surface roughness and microstructure of conventional grinding and electroplastic-assisted grinding, the superiority of electroplastic-assisted grinding surface quality is confirmed. Further discussion is presented on the impact of grinding parameters on the workpiece’s surface quality under the same electrical parameters. The results show that the sensitivity of surface roughness to grinding parameters from strong to weak is grinding wheel speed, feed speed and grinding depth. The optimal combination of grinding parameters is determined as a grinding wheel speed of 30 m/s, a feed speed of 0.5 m/min and a grinding depth of 10 μm.