Advances in digitizing the topography of vitrified bonded aluminum oxide grinding wheels

The grinding wheel topography is an important factor contributing to the grinding process result and an essential component for many simulation methods. While vitrified bonded aluminum oxide grinding wheels are widely used in the industry, measuring their topography is difficult. The optical properties of grains and bond, exhibiting highly variable slopes, transparency and specular reflections, impede the direct measurement using optical measuring instruments. Hence, a method of combining multiple measurements with varied illumination settings is proposed. Combining 20 measurements, the percentage of non-measured points for the examined specimen could be reduced from 93.6 % to 30.3 % compared to a single measurement.