An Experimental Investigation on Vegetable Oils as a Cutting Fluid under Minimum Quantity Lubrication: A Sustainable Machining Approach

Cutting fluid is a vital part of the machining process. Cutting fluid is significantly applied to lower the friction and heat generated in the machining zone. It also helps in easy chip removal, protection against oxidation, tool life improvement, and an overall improvement in the quality of the product. The current industrial practices are majorly emphasized on mineral-based oil application under flood lubrication to achieve superior quality. However, these oils and techniques are toxic and environmentally unfriendly. Machining under dry or with minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) has been mostly preferred to eliminate the use of abundant oil. The current research work has established the promising potential for vegetable oils as a cutting fluid under MQL during turning of AISI 4130 steel. The results inferred that vegetable-based cutting fluids performed better over mineral-based cutting fluids in terms of lower values of machined surface roughness, tool wear, cutting forces, and chip-tool interface temperature. The MQL machining performance in terms of cutting forces, surface roughness and tool life has been observed better in comparison to machining under flood and dry cutting conditions.