Grinding of microstructured functional surfaces: a novel strategy for dressing of microprofiles

For the grinding of microstructured functional surfaces called riblets, a novel dressing strategy using diamond profile rollers was introduced for the generation of microprofiles on vitrified grinding wheels. The purpose of the present study is to grind special designed riblets (microgrooves with a width of 40 μm and depth of 20 μm) on the surfaces of compressor blades with the purpose of drag reduction in turbulent flow. It is currently not possible to achieve the desired microprofiles on grinding wheels by profile dressing directly, due to the limited producible minimal profile tip geometry on the dressing roller. The new profile dressing strategy using a profile shift kinematic allows generating microscopic roof profiles with an ideal sharp profile tip. Compared with dressing using form rollers, the new dressing method using profile rollers offers a much higher dressing efficiency and process stability at dressing microprofiles.