Abstract: A grinding machine comprises a grinding shaft which is rotatably mounted on the grinding shaft stock for rotation about a longitudinally extending shaft axis. The grinding machine includes at least one grinding disk fixedly mounted to the shaft and at least one bearing movably disposed between the grinding shaft and the grinding shaft stock for rotatably supporting the grinding shaft. Finally, the grinding machine includes an adjustment means with an adjustable piezoelectric actuator which is disposed between the bearing and the grinding shaft stock. The grinding machine can be used to grind selective regions of a workpiece which is mounted to a workpiece stock so as to define a fixed longitudinally extending workpiece axis.

Abstract: A process for successive grinding of crankpins of crankshaft by a grinder includes clamping the crankshaft at two spaced center journals thereof and rotating the crankshaft around the axis of a crankpin to be ground. To enable the maintenance of highly acurate production tolerances even for small quantities and large crankshafts in an economical manner, only crankpins directly adjacent to the center journals that are clamped are ground. Different clamping positions of the crankshaft are offset axially from one another by the center-to-center distance between two adjacent crankpins of the center journals or a multiple thereof.