Development of an electro static lubrication system for drilling of SCM 440 steel

The growing demands for high productivity of machining require the use of high cutting speeds and feed rates. Such machining inherently produces a high cutting temperature, which not only reduces tool life, but also impairs the product quality. Application of cutting fluid influences the performance of machining because of its lubrication and cooling actions but the environmental concerns call for the reduced use of cutting fluids in machining operations. Near-dry machining, such as minimum quantity lubrication, is regarded as one of the solutions to this difficulty. In the current work, cutting fluid was applied as a continuous high-velocity jet at the machining zone, at an extreme low rate using a fluid application system, by electro static lubrication (ESL), during the drilling of SCM 440 (hardened) steel. In the first stage of this work, experiments were carried out to investigate the role of the ESL system on tool wear, hole diameter, thrust force, and surface finish of the product in machining of SCM 440 steel. In the second stage, a comparative performance analysis of the ESL system with minimum quantity of lubricant (MQL) and dry machining was conducted. Results indicate that there is a considerable improvement in the performance of machining SCM 440 steel using the ESL setup when compared with MQL and dry machining in terms of considered parameters.