Development of CAM system for automatic compound dressing of superabrasive grinding wheels

In the field of superabrasive wheel dressing, multi-process composite dressing has obvious advantages, but there is no research related to the automation system of grinding wheel composite dressing. In order to make the integration of multiple processes in the composite dressing method more systematic and improve the dressing efficiency of shaped grinding wheels, this paper develops a CAM system by self-developed laser-mechanical composite dressing equipment, which can, according to different grinding wheel section shapes, automatically plan the dressing trajectory under multiple processes and dressing strategies, calculate the dressing toolpath with planar three-axis linkage, automatically generate the machining code, and at the same time design a visualisation interface to simulate the machining process. The results of dressing experiments on 150# diamond bronze bonded grinding wheels show that the system can generate machining programs for laser roughing, semi-finishing and mechanical finishing without collision and overcutting of the machine tool, and significantly improve the programming efficiency of the compound dressing method. And the dressing wheel profile error is within 9.1 µm and circular runout error is 6.1 µm.