Injection molded spherical grinding tools: manufacture and application of a novel tool concept for micro grinding

Micro grinding offers the possibility of machining micro structures in hard and brittle materials producing small-scaled parts. Novel micro grinding systems and machines require miniaturized tools and spindles to meet the demands of small or desktop machines providing a small working space. This paper introduces a novel grinding module called ’GrindBall’, with highly integrated tool drive and bearing functions as well as a shaft-free, spherical grinding tool for micro machining applications in small-scaled machine tools. One of the challenges within the development of the GrindBall module is the manufacture of spherical grinding tools, which are not commercially available. A promising method to produce such grinding tools, the injection molding of micro particle filled polymers, is demonstrated in this paper. Injection molding and grinding experiments show that such spherical grinding tools meet the main requirements of this novel grinding technique and show significant material removal rates.