A controllable material removal strategy considering force-geometry model of belt grinding processes

Belt grinding is commonly used in the process of machining complex surface. However, due to the elasticity of the grinding belt, it needs repeated or longer dwell-time grinding in order to meet the required machining precision, which is inefficient, time-consuming, and always ended up with poor surface quality. So, this paper focuses on a machining method so as to improve machining efficiency and accuracy. First, considering the elastic deformation of the contact wheel and characteristics of the workpiece, the global and local material removal processes of belt grinding are modeled to calculate the acting force. Then, based on the analysis of rigid-flexible coupling, a controlling strategy is proposed to control the acting force and grinding dwell time. The variable feed grinding experiments were carried out on the developed five-axis CNC belt grinding machine integrated with measuring and machining. The ladder type workpiece surface and free-form workpiece surface were employed to validate the proposed controllable material removal strategy. The results verify that the proposed strategy is feasible and efficient.