Vitrified bonds are the most recently developed and advanced bonding systems for superabrasive grinding wheels. Unlike other bonding systems such as resin or metal, the vitrified bond structure is both very porous and very wear resistant. A new HPB high performance bonding technology (developed by Meister Abrasives) further improves on vitrified bonding to manufacture grinding wheels that last significantly longer or cut faster or both (depending on how various properties are balanced during the wheel manufacturing process). Users of the HPB CBN wheels have reported improvements in wheel life up to 100% and manufacturing throughput improvements up to 25% vs. other vitrified bond CBN abrasive products.

The HPB manufacturing process also incorporates modified curing cycles that enhance the properties of the CBN abrasive crystals themselves. These modified CBN crystals fracture more readily to stay sharper during use.

Examples

Fine Grinding: users of HPB technology for fine grinding report they are able to grind up to 25% faster on a larger number of parts/carrier. They are also able to grind a wide variety of stainless steels, powdered metals, chrome or Nickel platings, and even non-hardened metals with ease.

 

Internal bore grinding:

For bore grinding applications some users report skip dress and wheel life increases up to 100% under the same operating conditions, plus higher throughput resulting from 50% less wheel dressing and wheel change time.

 

Aerospace and Power Generation:

HPB technology can provide significant improvements in part quality and reduced subsurface damage when grinding sensitive components such as turbine vanes, blades, and seal rings, in even the most exotic new superalloys.

 

Medical Tools and Implants:

In this industry users are experiencing improvements in material removal rates for stainless steels up to 25% compared to resin bonded abrasive products. HPB wheels also allow for automatic in-process dressing in automated production cells.

 

Technology Extensions

High Performance Bonding technology was originally developed to enhance the cost/performance of small internal grinding wheels. The focus on small internal grinding wheels made it necessary for the researchers to pay very close attention to the consistency and quality of superabrasive materials and bonding system performance. Even small variations in these attributes show up quickly in internal grinding because the life of a small wheel is relatively short to begin with.