Comparison of spherical and truncated cone geometries for single abrasive-grain cutting

The purpose of the present work was to compare the cutting action of two different abrasive-grain geometries using experimental observations and a validated finite element model. A spherical tool was used to approximate a dull abrasive grain while a truncated cone tool was used to approximate an abrasive grain with a well defined cutting edge. The selected geometries were chosen to represent extreme cases in order to bracket the cutting action of a range of cutting geometries. The results showed that both tools produced similar normal and tangential forces per unit width up to a depth of cut of approximately 3 μm. The improved cutting geometry of the truncated cone tool caused the normal force per unit width to decrease and the tangential force per unit width to increase in relation to the spherical tool. The truncated cone tool was shown to experimentally and numerically be more efficient based on the reduced pile-up heights and improved stress distributions. It was also shown that both geometries converged towards the same specific energy to displace material at suitably large depths of cut, which suggests that there is a minimum specific energy obtainable for a given workpiece material that is independent of the grain geometry. However, specific energies to remove material were higher for the spherical tool as compared to the truncated cone tool. Analysis of the energy components of the finite element model showed that frictional energy contributions were high with the spherical tool and low with the truncated cone tool. Finally, it was found that both tools required approximately the same energy to shear a chip from a workpiece when friction was subtracted from the specific energy for material removal.