Experimental investigations on the performance of ductile cast iron with palm oil during turning process using MQL technique

Abstract

This project focuses on turning of ductile cast iron using the MQL (Minimum Quantity Lubrication) technique. Vegetable oil is used as a substitute cutting fluid, and the results are compared with dry conditions to demonstrate the benefits of turning the material under MQL environment. Three process parameters, namely cuttingspeed (V), feed (F), and depth of cut (D), are varied to obtain the responses like cutting force (Fc) and surface roughness (Ra). In wet turning edible vegetable palm oil is misted onto the tool-workpiece contact. The cutting force and surface roughness are tabulated for both dry and wet machining. Based on these data, Taguchi optimization is performed using L27 design for both wet and dry conditions. The optimization of the process parameters is done for both dry and wet turning. There is a significant difference with respect to cutting force and surface roughness is appreciated to demonstrate the effectiveness of MQL turning over dry turning of ductile cast iron. The cutting force during wet turning is reduced, from 5.89 kgf to 4.91 kgf and surface roughness is reduced from 0.832 µm to 0.629 µm compared with dry turning. The optimized parameters are included in the conclusion of this paper.