US 4,100,700 A · Workpiece conditioning grinder system

Abstract

An elongated metal workpiece such as a slab or billet is moved longitudinally beneath a grinding head by a reciprocating carriage mounted on an elongated track. The carriage receives a billet from a charging table, reciprocates the billet beneath the grinding head for a plurality of grinding passes, and then delivers the finished billet to a discharge table. The grinder head includes a rotating grinding wheel mounted at the end of a first arm which is pivotally secured to one end of a pivotally mounted second arm. The vertical position of the grinding wheel, and hence the downward force exerted by the grinding wheel on the billet, is principally determined by the angular position and torque, respectively, of the first arm while the horizontal position of the grinding wheel transverse to the longitudinal axis of the billet is principally determined by the angular position of the second arm. Grinding wheel vibration is limited by clamping the second arm to a massive, rigid foundation during each grinding pass thereby limiting the movement of the grinding head to a single degree of freedom. The grinding head and carriage are instrumented with transducers for measuring such parameters as grinding wheel driving torque and speed, carriage position and speed, and grinding wheel position to automatically remove a surface layer having a preselected thickness in accordance with a manually selected value representing desired thickness and the energy required to remove a unit volume of billet material at a given rate under specific operating conditions.

Claims20

Dependent claims

In a grinding machine for conditioning the surface of an elongated workpiece, said machine having a rotating grinding head and powered means for providing reciprocating movement between said grinding head and said workpiece along the longitudinal axis of said workpiece, a grinding machine control system, comprising:

vertical actuator means for controlling the grinding force exerted between said grinding head and said workpiece in a direction normal to the surface of said workpiece;
horizontal actuator means for incrementally moving said grinding head transverse to said reciprocating motion and providing an indication of the length of said increment;
power transducer means for providing an actual power indication corresponding to the mechanical power imparted to said grinding head about the rotational axis of said head;
workpiece velocity transducer means for providing a workpiece velocity indication corresponding to the relative velocity between said workpiece and grinding head in the direction of said reciprocating motion;
calculator means receiving the output of said velocity transducer means and said horizontal actuator means, said calculator means utilizing said workpiece velocity indication and said increment length indication to compute a required power indication corresponding to the grinding head rotational power required to form a cut having a predetermined depth under specific grinding conditions;
and
comparator means receiving the outputs of said power transducer means and said calculator means to cause said vertical actuating means to increase said grinding force responsive to required power being greater than actual power, and to decrease said grinding force responsive to required power being less than actual power.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Workpiece conditioning grinder system

Life of this patent

Workpiece conditioning grinder system

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20