Improvements in grinding steels by cryogenic cooling

Abstract The intensive temperatures in high-speed machining and grinding not only limit the tool life but also impair the machined surface by inducing tensile residual stresses, micro-cracks and thermal damage. This problem becomes acute when the components are made of hard and strong materials and used in dynamic loading. In such cases drastic cooling is essential during machining. The authors have employed liquid nitrogen in the form of a jet in the surface grinding of a number of steels and found appreciable improvement, though to varying degrees, in their surface quality without significant change in specific energy requirement.