Experimental investigation on surface roughness of aluminum alloy 6063 machining with minimum quantity lubricant

Abstract

Machining of Aluminum Alloys are performed on the machines that also machines steel. But best suited conditions for machining such as work piece rotational speed, feed rate can be achieved by machines that specially designed exclusively for machining of Aluminum alloys. Aluminum Alloy possess special properties which makes the machining quite difficult. The surface roughness of the aluminum alloy is considered as an important factor for smooth surface finish. There is a direct relation of type and method of flushing the coolant with surface roughness of the machined Aluminum alloy. ln this study attempt is made to increase the surface roughness of the Aluminum alloy by using minimum quantity lubrication technique rather than wet machining. The cutting parameters taken in consideration in this study is depth of cut,feed rate and cutting force. The investigation is done with dry machining, wet machining and minimum quantity machining and the surface roughness is calculated for all the conditions. By examining the Signal to noise ratio and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) the effect of feed rate is more than the cutting force follows with depth of cut. Experimental result shows that Ra value for Minimum quantity machining is 0.2623 µm is less compared to wet machining of 0.3382 µm