A Study on Cost Optimization of External Cylindrical Grinding

Grinding cost is an essential factor in a grinding process. In external cylindrical grinding, there has been an absence of various input grinding process parameters which have significant effects on the grinding cost. This paper presents an optimization of the grinding cost to determine the optimum exchanged grinding wheel diameter based on the seven input grinding parameters consisting of the initial grinding wheel diameter, the grinding wheel width, the wheel life, the radial grinding wheel wear per dress, the total depth of dressing cut, the machine tool hourly rate, and the grinding wheel cost. Combined with the screening experiments, the influence of the grinding parameters on the optimum exchanged grinding wheel diameter for the external cylindrical grinding process was examined. In addition, the effect of the interactions between the input grinding parameters was also evaluated. Finally, the regression equation for computing the optimum exchanged grinding wheel diameter was introduced. Therefore, the proposed model can be further applied for the external grinding process effectively.