Forces and Specific Energy of Polyamide Grinding

This work investigated the grinding process of reinforced and nonreinforced polyamide materials using an Al(2)O(3) grinding wheel. Samples were ground using a custom-made setup of sensors to evaluate in-line temperature, forces, and power. The surface roughness and images were acquired to assess the quality of the final products. The novelty of the work is to correlate the energy evaluation with the process efficiency during processing. Grinding at high cutting depths achieves good surface quality indicators, such as R(a) < 5 μm and R(z) < 5 μm. Results also reveal that special attention should be given to the infeed speed when cutting unfilled materials to produce good results. With high values of energy partition, the specific grinding energy stabilizes around 60 J/mm³. Strains must be applied quickly because, to ensure the unfilled materials respond better at this cutting depth, the reinforced materials suffer a slight degradation of quality.