Enhancement of Machinability of AISI1045 Steel Using Molybdenum Disulphide as a Solid Lubricant

Abstract

The heat produced during machining is critical in terms of workpiece quality. So, effective control of heat generated at the cutting zone is essential to ensure the workpiece quality in machining, which can be achieved by using coolants. As the coolants are relatively inaccessible to the machining zone due to the typical nature of the process, it has been attempted to study the performance of machining of AISI 1045 steel using molybdenum disulphide as a solid lubricant in the present work. The experimental set up (solid lubricant powder feeder) for molybdenum disulphide assisted machining was designed and built. After ensuring the set up for proper lubrication, experiments were conducted to see the influence of tool geometry (radial rake angle and nose radius) and cutting conditions (cutting speed and feed rate) on the considered machining response while machining AISI 1045 steel. In order to compare the performance of molybdenum disulphide with that of wet machining, the same set of conditions that were conducted with wet condition repeated using molybdenum disulphide as solid lubricant. Results indicate that there is a considerable improvement in the performance of milling AISI 1045 steel using molybdenum disulphide as a solid lubricant when compared with wet machining in terms of surface finish and chip thickness. The experimental results of this work will be used to obtain the relationship between cutting speed, feed rate, radial rake angle, and nose radius on the machining response i.e. surface roughness by modeling.