Abstract: A 3D surface profiler based on scanning white light interferometry is introduced to measure the surface topography of a 3 000 mesh diamond grinding wheel, and a large sampling area could be achieved by its image stitching capability without compromising lateral or vertical resolution. Fourier analysis is performed to identify the frequency structure of the wheel’s surface topography, and then the characteristics of diamond grains are extracted by digital filtering. The protrusion height distribution of diamond grains, the static effective grain density and the distribution of inter-grain spacing of the grinding wheel are derived. The study shows that the grain protrusion height obeys an approximate normal distribution, the static effective grain density is much lower than the theoretical grain density, and only a small number of diamond grains are effective in grinding process with fine diamond grinding wheel.

Key words: Digital filtering, Fine diamond grinding wheel, Grain protruding height, Inter-grain spacing, Static effective grain density, Surface topography