PLC Based Automated Coolant Supply System for Machining AISI 304L in CNC Milling

Abstract

In machining operation, cutting fluids plays an important role to the surface quality of a product. However, the toxicity of cutting fluids can give negative impact to the human health and environmental problems. There are many techniques that have been explored by researchers for green manufacturing such as dry cutting, high pressure cooling technique, wet cooling technique, mist cooling technique and minimal quality lubricant technique. This research work proposed to explore the MQL concepts in the CNC milling using the application of Programmable Logic Control (PLC) which is able to control the duration time for coolant supply during the machining process. The performance of the new system was evaluated by measuring the surface roughness and the quantity of the cutting fluids used during the machining process. The results show that the best surface roughness can be obtained with less amount of coolant quantity during the machining operation. Automated coolant system can minimize the use of coolant and able to reduce the coolant recycle period. Therefore, the automatic coolant supply for CNC machine has the potential to be implemented as a new method to the machining process for green cutting.