Investigations on machinability aspects of AISI 52100 with minimum quantity solid lubrication

Makhesana, Mayurkumar A.; Patel, K. M.

Abstract Sustainability has been a major concern of today’s manufacturing industries. Various efforts have been made to improve the productivity and performance of machining. It is always aimed to reduce the heat generated during machining by various cooling and lubrication approaches. In the present work, efforts have been made to assess the effectiveness of minimum quantity lubrication and solid lubricants in machining. Experiments have been performed under MQL and MQSL environment with selected flow rate (300 ml/hr), 20 wt% of calcium fluoride (CaF2) and 10µm particle size of solid lubricant and results are compared with dry and flood cooling environment. The process performance is observed by measuring surface roughness produced, tool flank wear, the microhardness of machined workpiece, and forms of the chip produced. Results revealed the superiority of lubricant mixture applied in form of MQSL due to enhanced lubricating properties imparted by solid lubricant added with MQL.