Study on wear mechanism of small ball-end grinding wheel and surface integrity of complex component under high-speed machining condition

The small ball-end fine diamond grinding wheel is well-suited for machining complex components with small curved surface structures, demonstrating high-precision and high-quality machining capabilities. By increasing the speed of the workpiece, the issue of poor grinding performance caused by the small diameter of the ball-end grinding wheel can be effectively overcome. However, this strategy inevitably increases wheel wear and affects surface integrity. To address these challenges, this paper systematically investigates the grinding characteristics of the small ball-end grinding wheel. First, grinding experiments were performed to investigate the influence of workpiece speed, feed rate, and grinding depth on the material removal rate , wheel wear, and surface integrity. Then, the wear mechanism of the grinding wheel was analyzed. The wear modes of the grinding wheel at high workpiece speeds include metal adhesive wear and abrasive grain fracture, which enhance the self-sharpening of the grinding wheel while accelerating its wear. Furthermore, the surface morphology creation mechanism of fused silica under different material removal modes was revealed. Moreover, the correlation between material removal rate and surface roughness caused by wheel wear was revealed. A high-speed grinding strategy was subsequently proposed based on the relationship between the grinding characteristics and grinding parameters of the small ball-end grinding wheel under various grinding conditions. Finally, the feasibility of this grinding strategy was validated through its application to the machining of the complex curved fused silica hemispherical resonator (HSR). Experimental results indicate that under the high workpiece speed condition, the best surface roughness of HSR decreases from 90.5 nm to 62.2 nm, while the maximum grinding wheel wear increases from 9.7 μm to 11.5 μm, with minimal impact on surface integrity. Therefore, the high-speed grinding strategy proposed in this study holds promise for improving HSR surface quality while controlling wheel wear, providing technical guidance for the high-performance manufacturing of HSR.