Fixed abrasive machining is the common collective name for machining processes which utilize the fixed hard abrasive particles as the cutting medium. In particular, grinding with fixed abrasive tools is the one of the most important means of fixed abrasive machining. The grinding process of shaping materials is probably the oldest in existence, dating from the time prehistoric man found that he could sharpen his tools by rubbing them against gritty rocks. Nowadays, grinding is a major manufacturing process which accounts for about 20–25 % of the total expenditures on machining operations in industrialized countries.
In general, within the spectrum of machining process, the uniqueness of grinding is found in its cutting tool. Grinding wheels and tools are generally composed of two materials – tiny abrasive particles called grains or grits, which do the cutting, and a softer bonding agent to hold the countless abrasive grains together in a solid mass. Each abrasive grain is a potential microscopic cutting tool. The grinding process uses thousands of abrasive cutting points simultaneously and millions continually.
Grinding is traditionally regarded as final machining process in the production of components requiring smooth surfaces and fine tolerances. There is no process which can compete with grinding for most precision machining operation, but the process is far from being confined to this type of work. More abrasive is actually consumed by heavy-duty grinding operations, where the objective is to remove materials as quickly and efficiently as possible with little concern for surface quality. Grinding is as essential for delicate precision slicing of silicon wafers for microelectronic circuits using paper-thin abrasive disks or saws only 20 μm thick, as it is for the heavy-duty conditioning and cleaning of billets and blooms in foundries and steel mills at removal rates of around 1,600 cm3  per min with 220 kW machines (Malkin and Guo 2008).
There are numerous types of grinding operations which vary according to the shape of the wheel and the kinematic motions of the workpiece and wheelhead. Some of the more common ones for machining flat and cylindrical surfaces are displayed in Fig. 1. More complex machines are used to generate other shapes. Any of these processes may be applied to fine finishing, to large-scale stock removal, or to a host of tasks between these extremes.
Another area where grinding is virtually unchallenged is for machining of materials which, because of their extreme hardness or brittleness, cannot be efficiently shaped by other methods. In the production of hardened steel components, such as cutting tools and rolling bearing rings, grinding can be performed on either the annealed or the hardened steel, often with comparable ease, whereas other machining methods are usually restricted to the annealed material. The machining of nonmetallic brittle materials, including ceramic, cemented carbides, and glasses, is almost exclusively dependent on fixed abrasive processes.