769

Aspects of cooling lubrication reduction in machining

advanced materials

E Brinksmeier, A Walter, R Janssen and P Diersen*

Main Department of Manufacturing Technologies, Foundation Institute for Material Science, Bremen, Germany

Abstract: Coolant lubricants are recognized as undesirable factors in metal cutting, especially in
machining advanced and difcult-to-cut materials. For both economic and ecological reasons, as
well as because of increasing legislation, efforts are being made to reduce the use of coolants. On
account of this, the introduction of dry machining and minimum quantity lubrication (MQL)
techniques in machining processes is increasing. The results of the investigations carried out give an
overview of the possibilities for inuencing the machining of advanced materials, e.g. titanium alloys
and extreme low-sulphur steels. The research topics focus on cutting tool performance and wear
mechanisms at high cutting speeds while using different lubricants and cooling supply strategies. The
investigations and verication experiments contribute to increasing process stability and tool life,
improvement of machined surface nish and avoidance of tensile residual stresses.

Keywords: dry machining, minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), hardened steels, titanium alloys,
low-sulphur steels

NOTATION Fe iron
FeS iron sulphide
ae back engagement of the cutting tool (mm) h thickness of cut (mm)
ap working engagement of the cutting tool h% chip thickness (mm)
(mm) HB Brinell hardness
Al aluminium HC hard metal
Al2O3 aluminium oxide HRB Rockwell hardness, ball
C carbon HRC Rockwell hardness, cone
CL cooling lubricant HSS high-speed steel
Co cobalt HW coated hard metal
Cr chromium l drilling depth (mm)
Cu copper Mc cutting torque (N/m)
d diameter of hole (mm) Mn manganese
D diameter of drill (mm) MnS manganese sulphide
DF tool diameter Mo molybdenum
DH double stroke MQL minimum quantity cooling lubrication
E energy (J) n spindle speed (min1)
f feed (mm) N nitrogen
fz feed per tooth (mm) Nb niobium
F force (N) Ni nickel
Fc cutting force (N) P phosphorus
Ff feed force (N) rm tool nose corner radius (mm)
Fp back force (N) Ra arithmetical mean deviation of the prole
(mm)
The MS was recei6ed on 5 No6ember 1998 and was accepted for Rz ten point height of irregularities (mm)
publication on 3 March 1999. S sulphur
*Corresponding author: Main Department of Manufacturing Technolo-
gies, Foundation Institute for Material Science (IWT), Badgasteiner SEM scanning electron microscope
Strasse 3, D 28359 Bremen, Germany. Si silicon
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770 E BRINKSMEIER, A WALTER, R JANSSEN AND P DIERSEN

Sn tin tic investigations as well as industrial applications

t cutting time (min) have shown that the type of coolant and its supply have
T tool life (min) a great inuence on cutting processes. Component
Ta tantalum quality and tool wear depend on the cooling/lubricating
Ti titanium conditions. From this, it becomes evident that cooling
TiC titanium carbide lubricants are an important technological parameter in
TiN titanium nitride machining [1].
6c cutting speed (m/min) On the other hand, it has to be pointed out that
6f feed speed (m/min) coolants also represent a signicant part of the manu-
6sp chip velocity facturing costs. Figure 1 illustrates the costs of the
V vanadium production of camshafts in the European automotive
VBc wear at the corner of the cutting edge (mm) industry [2]. The conspicuous high share of the costs for
VBmax maximum wear land value (mm) cooling reaches 16.9 per cent of the total manufacturing
W tungsten costs. Considering the costs for tools (7.5 per cent), it
Wc tungsten carbide seems incomprehensible that all innovation and activity
z amount of cutting edges directed towards cost improvement in the last few years
have focused on tools. The costs of the purchase, care
h relief angle (deg) and disposal of coolants are two times higher and have
m included plan angle (deg) to be taken into account when examining economics in
u inclination angle (deg) machining. Furthermore, coolants may have unhealthy
shear plane angle (deg) effects on workers as well as on the environment. With
regard to legislation, the abandonment of coolants
would be desirable. While technological demands indi-
1 INTRODUCTION cate the need for an adapted coolant supply, such
supporting media should be reduced or avoided from
In machining, great quantities of coolants and lubri- the ecological and economic point of view.
cants are supplied to avoid thermal damage to the At present, many efforts are being undertaken to
component. Nevertheless, cooling lubricants are often develop advanced machining processes using less or no
regarded as supporting media that are necessary but coolants. Interesting alternatives to conventional ood-
not important. In many cases the cooling system is ing coolant supply are the minimum quantity lubrica-
based on the assumption that the greater the amount of tion (MQL) and dry machining technologies, which
lubricant used the better is the support for the cutting make the advantages of a reduction in or complete
process. avoidance of coolants achievable. At any rate, the use
The contact zone between workpiece and tool is of MQL will only be acceptable on condition that the
often ooded without taking into account the require- main tasks of coolants in cutting processes can be
ments of the specic process. In the last decade, scien- successfully replaced [3 5]. Figure 2 lists the tasks of

Fig. 1 Manufacturing costs for crankshafts at a German car builder

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 ASPECTS OF COOLING LUBRICATION REDUCTION IN MACHINING ADVANCED MATERIALS
Fig. 2 Tasks of coolants in machining processes
coolants in cutting processes and demonstrates which
tasks have to be taken over by other solutions when
reducing the coolant quantities. In dry machining, the
cooling of workpiece, tool and machine tool cannot be
ensured by a coolant, and in MQL the small lubricant
quantities can only conditionally full this task. Hence,
care must be taken to provide the optimal lubrication
for reducing the heat generated by the friction between
cutting tool and workpiece. In the application of MQL
for cutting processes, the lubrication can be undertaken
by suitable lubricating media. Another important task
of cooling lubricants is the carriage of chips out of the
contact zone to prevent contact between hot abrasive
chips and the generated surface. When establishing
MQL or dry machining in industry, new solutions need
to be developed to accomplish this key task [6, 7].
While a huge amount of lubricant is spilled out on to
the work area when using conventional cooling lubrica-
tion methods, only a ne spray is used in the MQL
technology. An optimally adjusted MQL system needs
less than half a liquid gill. The spray of oil lubricates
the contact zone and evaporates during the machining
process. In contrast to the conventional cooling tech-
nology, the chips and the workpieces are dry when
MQL is used. The results are low chip disposal and low
workpiece cleaning costs.
Evaporation of the lubricant contributes to the cool-
ing of the workpiece. Cooling by convection itself is
rather low. Furthermore, the evaporation enthalpy of
water is higher than that of oil. However, owing to the
better lubrication effect, oil is mainly used for MQL in
industrial practice.
Today, MQL systems have been established in many
industrial sawing and milling processes. For the end-
users, three MQL systems are available on the market.
All of these systems are based upon the principle of lost
lubrication with dry chips and dry workpieces following
the machining process:
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771
1. Lubrication through spraying. In this system the air
and oil are mixed in the tank.
2. Low-pressure spraying system. The lubricant is
sucked into the air through the special construction
of the nozzle (the Venturi nozzle principle).
3. Excess pressure spraying system. The cooling lubri-
cant is supplied by a pump. The oil and air are
separately supplied through supply pipes. The mix-
ing and atomization of oil and air take place in the
nozzle. This is the common MQL technology in the
industry.
The main know-how of this technology is nozzle design
optimization. For the machining process, good atom-
ization is necessary in order to achieve good wetting of
the work area. However, this involves high risks to the
health of the workers because of exposure to aerosols.
In Germany, technical guides for the use of hazardous
substances specify that the concentration of aerosols
should be less than 5 mg/m3 in air. Because of this
requirement, MQL technology should only be used in a
machine tool with an air exhaust installation.
2 INVESTIGATION OF DIFFERENT COOLING
LUBRICATION TECHNOLOGIES
2.1 Minimum quantity lubrication in grinding
Generally, grinding enables the achievement of high
surface integrity as well as high material removal rates.
Hence, not only hardened materials can be economi-
cally machined by grinding. In these rst investigations
on MQL in grinding, unhardened parts were also used.
As a test material, heat-treated steel 42CrMo4 (com-
parable with SAE 4140) was used. The workpieces were
austenitized for 40 min at 850 C, quenched in oil and
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772 E BRINKSMEIER, A WALTER, R JANSSEN AND P DIERSEN
tempered to 29 HRC for 2 h at 610 C. A vitried
bonded carborundum wheel, characterized by mean
bonding hardness and porosity, was chosen because the
lower density of the structure should minimize the
loading of the grinding wheel. Moreover, it was ex-
pected that a greater porosity would lead to better chip
removal as well as to an optimized lubricant supply to
the contact zone.
When grinding the tempered steel, signicantly lower
process forces were needed compared with the forces to
grinding the hardened material, because the deforma-
tion resistance was lower and also because of the
inuence of the wheel specication. It must be pointed
out that, even at higher specic material removal rates,
no thermal damage to the workpiece was detectable.
The normal forces for different coolants and coolant
supply techniques vary only slightly (Fig. 3). Flooding
coolant supply and MQL by an ester oil lead to lower
forces than dry grinding with MQL by an emulsion.
Nevertheless, the differences, especially for mean mate-
rial removal rates, seem to be negligible.
The effect of cooling on machining becomes more
evident when looking at the workpiece roughness (Fig.
4). MQL by ester oil and ooding coolant supply
provide the best surface quality. If an emulsion is used
for MQL instead of an ester oil, the roughness will
become higher than in dry grinding [1]. Obviously, in
MQL with emulsion neither the cooling nor the lubrica-
Fig. 3 Normal force depending on the depth of cut
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tion by the small oil content within the emulsion is
great enough. On the other hand, in MQL with ester
oil, at least a sufcient lubrication can be achieved. The
SEM micrographs of grinding chips demonstrate that
the reduction in cooling lubricants results in increasing
amounts of heat entering the chips (Fig. 5).
If the contact zone is ooded, relatively long chips of
differing dimensions and shapes are generated. In MQL
and towards dry grinding, more and more fragmented
chips characterized by a higher deformation are pro-
duced. Especially in dry grinding of the soft material,
many spherical chips as well as molten and solidied
particles with a dendritic structure are formed. It can be
gathered from this observation that the heat ux in the
grinding of unhardened steels using a vitried bonded
wheel mainly occurs via the chips if the cooling supply
is reduced. Thermal impacts on the workpiece are
thereby avoided. Furthermore, it must be taken into
account that the tempered structure is less sensitive to
high-temperature variations compared with the hard-
ened structure [8].
2.2 Machining of low-sulphur steels
The relationship between workpiece material properties
and tool wear has to be known to improve the eco-
nomic aspects of the machining of steels. The machin-
ability of steels is highly inuenced by workpiece
material properties because of [9]:
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 ASPECTS OF COOLING LUBRICATION REDUCTION IN MACHINING ADVANCED MATERIALS
Fig. 4 Workpiece roughness depending on the cooling conditions
(a) material structure,
(b) non-metallic inclusions,
(c) chemical composition and
(d) mechanical properties.
There is an interdependence between these parameters,
e.g. the material structure is inuenced by the chemical
composition of the steel, so possible interactions have
to be considered. The inuence of different chemical
components of workpiece materials on tool wear can be
used for a metallurgical improvement of machinability.
An increase in the sulphur content of steels leads to
inclusions of sulphides in the material structure. The
sulphides initiate chip formation and thereby improve
chip breaking. Steels with an extremely low sulphur
content have a higher strength and a higher fatigue
strength than high-sulphur steels. Owing to the higher
durability and reliability required for automotive engi-
neering parts, industrial users are interested in reducing
the sulphur content of the workpiece material. Never-
theless, the latest scientic research shows problems
when machining low-sulphur steels. A higher sulphur
content causes greasing at the lip of the tool during the
cutting process. Improved lubrication by sulphides
leads to a decrease in abrasive tool wear [10, 11] (Fig.
6). Considering that this positive effect does not exist
for extremely low-sulphur steels, other material treat-
ments or manufacturing arrangements are necessary to
improve machinability.
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773
Until now, reproducible machinability of low-sul-
phur or sulphur-free steels has not been possible. The
aim of the investigations is to develop a method for
improving the cutting results and reliability. Investiga-
tions into the machinability of low-sulphur materials
will be carried out for the following machining pro-
cesses: cutting off, prole turning, drilling and gear
shaping.
The manufacturing aspects are an optimized tool
geometry with chip-forming edges, the choice of
qualied cutting material with coatings, adaptation of
the cutting speed and feed and special cooling lubri-
cants. The material science aspect is the heat treatment,
especially soft annealing [12].
The quality of the machined material was assessed by
surface nish, subsurface damage, chip geometry and
cutting forces. Investigations of tool wear are made by
light-optical microscope and scanning electron
microscope.
Investigations on heat-treated steel with a sulphur
content of 0.001 and 0.007 per cent were carried out on
a multi-axis computer numerically controlled (CNC)
machining centre and a shaping machine. For these
experiments, coated high-speed steel (HSS) drills and
carbides were used. The effect of cooling lubrication on
the cutting forces during the shaping process is shown
in Fig. 7. It illustrates the reduction in forces owing to
the application of MQL by an excess pressure spraying
system at 10 ml/h. The largest measured force is the
cutting force. The proportions of the other forces and
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774 E BRINKSMEIER, A WALTER, R JANSSEN AND P DIERSEN

their decrease when MQL is applied are signicantly
smaller. This decrease in forces was accompanied by an
improvement in the surface quality and tool life by 20
per cent. A possible reason for this result is that the
lubrication effect when machining materials with a
higher sulphur content provided by manganese sul-
phides can be replaced by MQL.
In addition, the effect of cooling supply strategies on
drilling with HSS drills was also investigated. Drilling
of low-sulphur steels is a particularly difcult process
because the chips have to be transported out of the
generated hole. The effect of cooling lubrication on drill
wear is shown in Fig. 8. It illustrates the possible
number of holes drilled before the maximum width of

Fig. 5 SEM micrographs of grinding chips

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 ASPECTS OF COOLING LUBRICATION REDUCTION IN MACHINING ADVANCED MATERIALS 775

Fig. 6 Inuence of sulphides on chip building

Fig. 7 Reduction in cutting forces by MQL

Fig. 8 Tool life when drilling low-sulphur steel

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776 E BRINKSMEIER, A WALTER, R JANSSEN AND P DIERSEN
Fig. 9 Welded chips on the tool ank
wear land reaches VBmax =0.3 mm. The investigations
show that the use of overow lubrication with a 5 per
cent emulsion reduces the tool wear signicantly. It can
be established that dry drilling is possible, but the tool
life amounts to only 50 per cent compared with wet
drilling. In the case of the switch from dry to overow
drilling, the difference between the two sulphur versions
increases. As regards surface quality and the roundness,
no signicant differences resulted, so that component
quality is secured.
2.3 Milling of titanium alloys
Titanium alloys exhibit high specic strength and heat
resistance (strength density ratio), but they are difcult
to machine. The low thermal conductivity and high
chemical reactivity of titanium alloys cause increased
tool wear, high cutting temperatures and strong adhe-
Fig. 10 Effect of cooling lubrication on tool wear
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sion between tool and part surface [13, 14]. Therefore
welded chips on the tool surface lead to premature
process disturbances (Fig. 9).
Accordingly, practical milling investigations of tita-
nium alloy TiA16V4 were carried out on a multi-axis
CNC machining centre. A representative series of un-
coated and coated-end mills of carbide metal and high-
speed steel were selected for the experiments.
Experimental research focuses on cutting tool perfor-
mance (e.g. breakage of cutting edges under high-speed
milling conditions and wear mechanisms while using
different lubricants and cooling supply strategies). To
characterize the performances of different tools and
parameters, cutting forces, tool wear, surface quality
and chip formation were analysed. The experiments
were carried out with high-speed steel (HSS) and car-
bide tools. Compared with HSS tools, the carbide tools
showed a clearly better performance under high-speed
cutting conditions. Although increased cutting speeds
lead to reduced tool life travel (in mm), higher cutting
speeds can be achieved through the use of carbide tools.
The effect of cooling lubrication on carbide tool wear
is shown in Fig. 10. It illustrates the progress of the
width of wear land VBmax in relation to tool life travel.
Generally, the correct use of coolants during machining
operations greatly extends tool life. Especially in the
case of milling, the use of MQL is suitable for reducing
tool wear [15, 16]. In this case a special device atomizes
the coolant and supplies it with very low owrates. It
can be established that the use of MQL clearly reduces
tool wear. The investigations have also shown that the
use of overow lubrication with a 6 per cent emulsion
reduces the visible tool wear. It is evident that the
reduction in the heat generated by the process also
reduces the occurrence of welded chips on the tool
surface.
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Fig. 11 Tool life travel for different cooling lubrication strategies
In addition, the effects of different cooling supply
strategies for the use of high-speed steel tools were
investigated. Under these conditions the improvement
with MQL is clearly better. The effect is nearly the
same as for the use of overow lubrication. For the use
of HSS tools, it can be established that the tendency of
the titanium to pressure weld to the tool ank can be
almost completely avoided by the use of oil mist lubri-
cation. These results are applicable for all investigated
MQL lubricants. The slight differences between lubri-
cants with and without additives are presented in Fig.
11.
Products with high amounts of antiwear additives
lead to further increase in tool life. In this case it turned
out that high-additive products lead to better results
compared with emulsions in overow conditions. The
lower tool wear also leads to an improvement in the
visible surface roughness.
3 CONCLUSIONS
Cooling lubrication helps to improve tool life, surface
quality and accuracy in metalworking processes. In
recent years, the disadvantages of cooling lubricants
such as disposal problems, health problems and eco-
nomic factors have led to the implementation of strate-
gies to reduce the amount of cooling lubricants used in
metalworking.
Evaluation of experimental results and industrial ex-
perience lead to the conclusion that complete avoidance
of cooling lubrication in metalworking will not be
possible without reductions in tool life or surface qual-
ity. In addition, cooling lubrication is necessary for
reasons such as chip transport or machine tool cooling.
The investigations have shown that the minimum quan-
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777
tity lubrication is a suitable alternative for economically
and environmentally compatible production. It com-
bines the functionality of cooling lubrication with an
extremely low consumption of lubricant and therefore
has the potential to close the gap between overow
lubrication and dry machining. This article gives exam-
ples of successful reduction in the amount of coolant
used in machining. In conclusion, it can be stated that
it is essential to select appropriate machining parame-
ters and suitable tools in order to utilize this potential.
Therefore, a detailed analysis of the entire cutting pro-
cess, consisting of workpiece, tool, coolant and machine
tool, is necessary.
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