Performance Evaluation of Inconel 718 under vegetable oils based nanofluids using Minimum Quantity Lubrication Grinding

Abstract

The growing demands for high productivity in machining requires large amount of cutting fluids to control the lubrication phenomenon efficiently. The application of lubricants/coolants in machining operation has improved the efficiency of these operations, however the disposal of such coolants is hazardous to the eco-system. Hence eco friendly cutting fluids are required urgently to solve the environment problems related with traditional fluids. Minimum Quantity Lubrication (MQL) is an environmentally friendly method and efficient technique of applying cutting fluids in machining processes. In the present study Grinding of Inconel-718 has been investigated with regard to forces, surface roughness, grinding energy and G-Ratio under different cooling lubrication strategies i,e, flood, pure MQL and nanofluid MQL. For pure MQL technique sunflower and ricebran were used as base fluids, and different types of nanofluids were prepared by adding 1%, 0.5% Al2O3 nano-particles to these vegetable oils for evaluating the grinding process. From the results it is observed that sunflower has given better surface integrity and low grinding energy using pure MQL technique. Moreover, addition of Al2O3 nano-particles in the base fluid further enhanced the quality of surface, lower the grinding energy and enhanced the G-Ratio. Better surface integrity achieved under nanofluid MQL technique might be attributed to the filling and polishing effects of nano-particles along with good anti friction behaviour. Moreover nano-particles form a shearing film by penetrating into pores of workpiece surface resulted in shearing action leads to high values of G-Ratio. Hence results indicated that vegetable based nanofluids has the potential to be successfully apply at the grinding of hard materials. It appears that the proposed cooling strategy may conceivably improve the efficiency of cutting activities as far as machining quality, costs, and ecological insurance. This can enable in reduction of expensive fluid wastages which can lead to environmental friendly machining.