Comparison Between Geometric Shapes of Engineered Abrasives on Material Removal and Surface Quality - Part II

One of the most recent areas of research in the wood industry is engineered abrasives for wood applications. Engineered abrasives have become a very important product of study and form a class of new products, supplied by several suppliers that are not made in the conventional manner of applying individual abrasive grits to a backing. Engineered abrasives, developed for the metal industry, are made by some type of microcasting process with ceramic or abrasive slurries. The result is a grid of abrasive geometric shapes that are very regular. These regular geometric shapes permit a more consistent, predictable, and even performance during sanding process, and open a universe of possibilities of different shapes and materials mixes. However, this new abrasive has been developed for use on metals and its behavior and performance on wood is still unknown. The objective of this research is to compare the performance of different geometric shapes of engineered abrasives when exposed to different machining conditions on wood. The contributions of this paper include a characterization of the new abrasive on wood machining and a comparison of their performance according to different geometric shapes.