Investigation on Heat Transfer Performance of Heat Pipe Grinding Wheel in Dry Grinding

The use of fluid in grinding enhances heat exchange at the contact zone and reduces grinding temperature. However, the massive use of fluid can cause negative influences on environment and machining cost. In this paper, a novel method of reducing grinding temperature based on heat pipe technology is proposed. One new heat pipe grinding wheel and its heat transfer principle are briefly introduced. A heat transfer mathematical model is established to calculate equivalent thermal conductivity of heat pipe grinding wheel. Compared with the wheel without heat pipe, heat transfer effect of heat pipe grinding wheel is presented, and the influences of heat flux input, cooling condition, wheel speed, and liquid film thickness on heat transfer performance are investigated. Furthermore, dry grinding experiments with two different wheels are conducted to verify the cooling effectiveness on grinding temperature. The results show that thermal conductivity of the wheel with heat pipe can be greatly improved compared to the one without heat pipe; heat transfer performance of heat pipe grinding wheel can change with different grinding conditions; meanwhile, grinding temperatures can be significantly decreased by 50% in dry grinding compared with the wheel without heat pipe.