Investigating a novel and highly efficient approach for the fabrication of diamond profile rollers using Wire Electrical Discharge Conditioning (WEDC)

Abstract The fabrication of high-precision and high-performance profile rollers represents the main challenge of utilizing profile rollers as dressers to condition conventional grinding wheels. This results in high demands for an efficient process to manufacture profile rollers (form dressing wheels). Conventionally, diamond profile rollers have been produced through infiltration or negative electroplating methods. Nevertheless, these manufacturing methods suffer significant drawbacks, including extended production times and substantial costs. This study presents an innovative approach to fabricating diamond profile rollers using Wire Electrical Discharge Conditioning (WEDC). The WED-Conditioning emerges as an effective alternative to profile metal-bonded rotary diamond dressing tools. This innovative method leads to the production of diamond profile rollers in significantly shorter timeframes and at a more economical cost compared to the conventional manufacturing method with comparable quality. The research delves into the influence of profile roller specifications and conditioning strategies on the achievable profile accuracy and topography of the profile rollers. Also, the wear behavior of the WEDC-conditioned profile roller over long-term conditioning of conventional grinding wheels was studied. The findings highlight the significant contribution of the appropriate selection of WEDC strategies to the profile accuracy, with the potential to achieve profile accuracies comparable with conventional profile rollers. As well, grain size emerges as the primary determinant of achievable profile accuracy for profile rollers. The findings of this study could provide insights into optimizing the manufacturing process for super abrasive diamond profile rollers, thereby enabling their widespread use in the grinding industry.