New bio-based nanolubricants for turning of Inconel 718 towards improvement of tool wear resistance and specific cutting energy

Abstract

Substitution of traditional metal cutting fluid with newly formulated bio-based nanolubricants for machining hard-to-cut material such as Inconel 718 can be advantageous in reducing the impact on environmental as well as on the overall operating or machining expenditure. Added to that, combination of nano-lubricants with Minimum Quantity Lubricant (MQL) system provides benefit towards controlling fluid consumption along with the aim of cooling and lubricating effectively at the cutting zone. Until now, research studies on the ability of bio-based nano-lubrications for cutting fluids application on hard metal alloys are still at infancy. Hence, in this work, newly formulated bio-based nano-lubrications were tested while machining Inconel 718 with uncoated carbide tool. Performances of different cutting fluids namely; Solcut oil, coconut oil, pure bio-based oil, bio-based oil + 0.2% Al2O3, bio-based oil + 0.5% Al2O3 and bio-based oil + 0.8% Al2O3 were evaluated with respect to tool wear and specific cutting energy. Overall, bio-based oil + 0.8% Al2O3 exhibited excellent wear resistant which prolong the cutting time or the tool life expectancy. Meanwhile, bio-based oil + 0.5% Al2O3 was superior in lowering the specific cutting energy for machining Inconel 718 as compared to other five types of cutting fluids.