Wear behavior of uncoated carbide inserts under dry, wet and cryogenic cooling conditions in turning C-60 steel

Abstract

Environmental pollution, inconveniences and health hazards due to conventional application of cutting fluids essentially required for cooling and lubrication have been a great concern of the industries and the modern societies. Further they are also ineffective in controlling the high cutting temperature and rapid tool wear. One of the possible and potential techniques to overcome such problem is application of cryogenic cooling particularly by liquid nitrogen specially where the cutting temperature is a major constraint in achieving high productivity and job quality. The present work deals with experimental investigation in the role of cryogenic cooling by liquid nitrogen jets on tool wear, dimensional deviation and surface finish in turning of C-60 steel at industrial speed-feed combination by uncoated carbide inserts (SNMG and SNMM) of different geometric configurations. The results have been compared with dry and wet machining. The results of the present work indicate substantial reduction in tool wear, which enhanced the tool life, dimensional accuracy and surface finish. This may be mainly attributed to reduction in cutting zone temperature and favourable change in the chip-tool interaction. Further it was evident that machining with soluble oil cooling failed to provide any significant improvement in tool life, rather surface finish deteriorated. Furthermore, it provides environment friendliness and improves the machinability characteristics.