Title: An alternate method for optimisation of minimum quantity lubrication parameters in surface grinding

Authors: Manoj Kumar Sinha; Dinesh Setti; Sudarsan Ghosh; P. Venkateswara Rao

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110 016, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110 016, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110 016, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110 016, India

Abstract: Currently, the manufacturing sector is adapting sustainable techniques to minimise the damage to the environment. Minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) is one of the sustainable techniques to address the ecological and economic issues. In MQL atomised mixture of cutting fluid and compressed air is injected into the machining zone. The effectiveness of MQL technique primarily depends on the quality of the mixture which mainly depends upon the droplet quality. In this work, a combination of microscopy and image processing techniques has been used to ascertain the quality of droplets. The raw droplet features captured with a stereo-zoom microscope and analysed by measuring the average droplets size and number of droplets per unit area. To ensure the enhanced effectiveness of MQL parameters like droplets quality, air pressure, flow rate and nozzle positions have been optimised experimentally. Further, obtained optimal MQL parameters have been used in the grindability study of Inconel 718.

Keywords: minimum quantity lubrication; MQL; flood cooling technique; FCT; droplet quality; flow rate; nozzle position; air pressure; alumina; Inconel 718; optimisation; surface grinding; grindability; machinability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMM.2016.078983

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials, 2016 Vol.18 No.5/6, pp.586 - 605

Received: 01 May 2015
Accepted: 20 Nov 2015
Published online: 08 Sep 2016 *

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