New Vitrified Bond Diamond Grinding Wheel for Grinding the Cylinder of Polycrystalline Diamond Compacts

In this work, a kind of new vitrified bond based on Li2O-Al2O3-SiO2 glass ceramics was used to bond the diamond grains, which is made into grinding wheel and the cylindrical grinding process of polycrystalline diamond compacts (PDCs) by using the new vitrified bond diamond grinding wheel was discussed. Several factors which influence the properties of grinding wheel such as amount of vitrified bond and the kinds and amount of stuff in grinding wheel were also investigated. It was found that the new vitrified bond can firmly combine diamond grains, when there are only diamonds and vitrified bond in the structure of grinding wheel, the longevity of the grinding wheel is about 2.5-3 times as that of resin bond grinding wheel for processing PDCs. The grinding size precision of PDCs can be improved from ±0.03 mm to ±0.01 mm because of larger Young's modulus of vitrified bond than resin bond. The grinding time of a PDC product can be 1.75-2.0 min from 3.25-3.5 min, so this kind of grinding wheel can save much time for processing PDCs. Also, there is hardly noise when using this new vitrified bond diamond grinding wheel to process PDCs. The amount of vitrified bond in grinding wheel influences the longevity of grinding wheel. When the size of diamond grains is 90-107 μm, the optimal amount of vitrified bond in grinding wheel is 21% (wt pet). When the amount of vitrified bond exceeds 21%, there are many pores in grinding block, which will decrease the longevity of grinding wheel. The existence of addition stuff such as Al2O3 or SiC can reduce the longevity of grinding wheel.