The year 2020 was successful for the Scientific Technical Committee STC "G". Forty-four people attended the STC G winter meeting in Paris in February. The scheduled meeting of STC G at the CIRP General Assembly 2020 in Munich was canceled and postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Video Paper Sessions were carried out online in August and September 2020 to present and discuss the papers in the 2020 CIRP Annals and also the report on the status of the 2021 STC G Keynote paper. Also the voting for new STC G officers in May 2020 was postponed by one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so that the current officers will serve another year.

Highlights of the STC G winter meeting in Paris included six technical contributions, one laboratory presentation, and status updates of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 keynote papers. The topics of the technical contributions included manufacturing of diamond grinding wheels, operating patterns for abrasive tools in the scope of industry 4.0, the combined consideration of micromagnetic analysis and Malkin’s grinding burning limit, thermomechanics of continuous generating gear grinding, single grain scratching experiments and their modelling of different difficult-to-cut materials. In the laboratory-presentation, an overview of the research in the area of process monitoring during grinding at the GFE, Schmalkalden, Germany, was introduced. The progress of the 2020 keynote paper on “Interactions of Grinding Tool and Supplied Fluid”, the 2021 keynote on “Grinding and Finishing of (Future) Automotive Powertrain Components” as well as the 2022 keynote on “Advances in Grinding Tools and Abrasives” were presented, and the contents and status were all approved. Mr. Wegener, Chairman of STC G, encouraged the audience to present contributions in the next STC G meetings - any abrasive-related topics and especially topics that are related to the upcoming keynote papers are welcome.

The STC G contributions to the online Video Paper Sessions in August and September 2020 included seven regular papers and the keynote paper entitled “Interactions of Grinding Tool and Supplied Fluid” presented by Mr. Heinzel. The keynote paper summarized interactions between the rotating tool and the supplied fluid in grinding. The physical and chemical mechanisms of this tool-fluid interaction are the key for high-performance grinding processes and their energy efficiency. In this context, the fluid supply towards the contact zone, the tool cleaning with high pressure cleaning nozzles as well as (tribo)-chemical phenomena between the abrasive layer and the supplied fluid were analyzed and discussed. Finally, knowledge gaps were revealed, which indicate future research needs. The keynote paper was well received. The regular papers presented covered a broad range of topics, including carbon fibre-reinforced wheels, honing using shear jamming abrasive media, contactless sub-aperture polishing, new water-based fluids for superfinishing, plasma-assisted polishing of ceramics, polishing of micro geometries and water jet machining of multi material coatings. 

Konrad Wegener, Chairman, STC G, 28th of October 2020