Heat Transfer Performance of an Axially Rotating Heat Pipe for Cooling of Grinding.

Coolants are widely used to dissipate grinding heat in conventional grinding. This process, however, is not satisfactory as coolants often lose efficacy in grinding due to film boiling and can result in adverse health and environment effects. The present paper put forward the concept of a rotating heat pipe grinding wheel, attempting to reduce or eliminate the coolant amount and realize green machining. The heat transfer performance of rotating heat pipe grinding wheel was studied by using volume of fluid method in ANSYS/FLUENT. The influence of the input heat flux, filling ratio and rotational speed were investigated by a simulation method. Results show that the appropriate heat flux range for the rotating heat pipe grinding wheel was from 2000 to 100,000 W/m2, the ideal filling ratio was 50% and the rise of the rotational speed turned out to weaken the heat transfer coefficient. Finally, dry grinding experiments on Ti-6Al-4V were performed and the temperatures in both the rotating heat pipe and the grinding contact zone were monitored. The new designed rotating heat pipe grinding wheel showed a good prospect for application to green grinding of difficult-to-cut materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]