Emitter-receiver Piezoelectric Transducers Applied to Material Removal Monitoring in Grinding Process

Grinding is one of the most commonly used finishing processes in the manufacture of precision parts. The monitoring of the workpiece surface quality is considered highly complex due to particularities of the cutting tool and material removal mechanism. In this context, the monitoring of the grinding process is very important for the manufacturing industry and of great interest to researchers in the field. A large number of grinding process monitoring studies have been developed aiming at the automation of this process. The objective of this work is to monitor the material removal in the grinding of SAE 4340 steel workpieces by piezoelectric transducers in the emitter and receiver modes along with digital signal processing techniques. The tests were performed in a surface grinding machine equipped with an aluminum oxide grinding wheel. The transducers signals were sampled at a sampling frequency of 2 MHz. The digital signal processing was performed through the spectrum analysis and the application of techniques such as root mean square. The workpiece weight was measured by means of a digital scale before and after the grinding tests. The results show that the monitoring technique proposed in this work is sensitive to the material removal in the grinding process. The appropriate selection of frequency bands allows for the best diagnosis in relation to the events that occur during the grinding process.