Cutting Performance of Tool with Continuous Lubrication of Atomized Cutting Fluid at Tool-chip Interface

Abstract The application of conventional minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) will cause a large amount of oil mist particles to suspend in the air, which will harm the environment and people's health. In order to reduce the side-effects of the conventional MQL technology and the waste of cutting fluid, this paper has proposed an improved lubrication method, and a new cutting tool was fabricated. A micro-channel inside the new tool connects the tool rake face and the atomizing system, which can directly supply the atomized cutting fluid to the tool-chip contact interface for continuous lubrication. The cutting lubrication performances of the new lubrication method were compared with that of the conventional MQL, and the effectiveness of the new lubrication method was verified. The results include that the cutting force, the length of tool-chip contact, and the friction coefficient of the new lubrication method have decreased, but the cutting temperature has increased. The effect of lubricating is better than the conventional MQL. Meanwhile, the amount of the cutting fluid used by the new lubrication method has been reduced by 10 times. And the wear mechanism is dominated by adhesive wear.