Investigation into New Development of Minimal Quantity Lubricant (MQL) System in High Speed Milling of H13

I.N Yassin1*, M.Hamdi2, M.Fadzil3,M.Z Norhirni4 1,2,3,4 Dept. of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: 03-79677633 / Fax: 03-79675282 1 Email: izatulnadia@yahoo.com 2 Email: hamdi@um.edu.my 3 Email: fadzil.jamaludin@gmail.com 4 Email: norhirni@gmail.com Abstract - The primary objective of this present work is to investigate the effect of high speed milling machining towards the new development of minimal quantity lubricant (MQL) system using the Taguchi Mehod. The most effective of MQL control system will be developed in which continues solid stream pressure will be varied. The MQL is an alternative way to replacing the common method of applied the cutting fluid in CNC machining process. The conventional method is not effective enough especially at the higher cutting speed besides it is requiring a large amount of cutting fluid where it can lead to increment of total production cost in terms of procurement storage, maintenance and disposal of the cutting fluid. It is also improving the quality of surface finish and tool life. The successful of this study will benefit to the machining performance especially for the improvement of the minimal cutting fluid application at the high speed end milling of hardened steel where it can be commercialize as replacement of dry cutting and flood application. Keywords: Minimal cutting fluid, CNC Coolant System, Micropulsed Jet System, Programmable Cooling System, Integrated CNC System, Minimal quantity lubrication application

1. INTRODUCTION
Computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools form the basis of flexible manufacturing systems and computer integrated manufacturing systems. CNC machines make the most important means for CAD/CAM technologies today. However, improving the performance of metal cutting operations in high speed machining is still a major concern. In high speed machining, tool life and surface finish are largely depend on cutting speed, tool material, machine tool rigidity and also the existence of cutting fluid during machining process (Klocke F, Eisenblatter (1997)). During the cutting operation, the cutting fluid acts as a lubricant as well as a coolant. This lubricant helps in reducing the surface friction and temperature on the toolworkpiece and tool-chip interfaces. The common method of applied the cutting fluid, formally known as a flash flood. However, this method is not effective especially at the higher cutting speeds due to the large amount enquiry and negative effect on the working environment. Cutting fluid application gives the bad impact to the environment especially when improperly handled. Dhar et. Al (2006) mention that besides affecting worlers helth defectively, the amount of money spent on cutting fluids is higher compared to the amount needed associated to cutting tools. There are lots of MQL systems that have been developed by researchers where it has its own mechanism in delivering the cutting fluid. However, these mechanisms are equal by a few factors that can be considered as MQL system. Y. Su et al. (2007) states that MQL technique applied a very small amount of cutting oil in the range of 6 100ml/h. Meanwhile, H.R Dhar et al. (2006) state that the range of MQL flow rate is between 50-500ml/h. Therefore, using the minimal quantity lubrication (MQL) is an alternative way to overcome this problem. Thanonsak Thepsonthi (2005) has concluded that the minimal cutting fluid application in pulsed jet form during the high speed end milling of hardened steel can be regarded as the replacement of flood and dry cutting application.

There is a great need to further improve the MQL system. The successful of this present work will benefit to the machining performance especially for the improvement of the minimal cutting fluid application during the high speed end milling of hardened steel and can be commercialize as replacement of dry cutting and flash flood application.

engineering problem, the smaller the better signal-tonoise (S/N) ratio is used. Table 2: The L9(34 ) orthogonal array table Factors Control Exp. No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A (Spindle Speed) B (Dept of cut) C (Feed rate) D (Type of cooling)

TPM

2. EXPERIMENT PROCEDURE
Experiment have been carried out by plain turning a block of AISI H13 Alloy Steel with dimension 150mm width, 150 length and 150 high in a vertical machining centre (Mitsui Seiki VT3A) at robust design parameter combination under dry, air and minimum quantity lubrication conditions to study the role of MQL specially on the surface roughness effect. The experimental control factors are given in Table 1. Table 1: The control factor of experiment Factor A B C D Factors Control Spindle Speed (RPM) Depth of cut (mm) Feed rate (mm/tooth) Type of cooling Level 1 7,957 0.50 0.05 MQL Level 2 9,284 0.75 0.10 Air Level 3 10,610 1.00 0.15 Dry

L1 L1 L1 L2 L2 L2 L3 L3 L3

L1 L2 L3 L1 L2 L3 L1 L2 L3

L1 L2 L3 L2 L3 L1 L3 L1 L2

L1 L2 L3 L3 L1 L2 L2 L3 L1

The experimental conditions are given in Table 3. The value of depth of cut and feed rate was selected based on the tool manufacturers recommendation while cutting velocity was chosen after increasing three times value from the conventional machining parameter to achieve the high speed milling criterion. Table 3: The Experimental Conditions Experimental Conditions Machine Tools Mitsui Seiki VT3A Slot milling AISI H13 Alloy steel with hardness 50HRC3 Size (mm) = 150 x 50 x 50 12mm TiAlN coated carbide inserts Lubricant pressure of 10 bar, and delivery rate of 150 ml/min.

The values of the control factor of the experiment were selected based on the brainstorming from the manufacturers recommendation and industrial practices. In this experiment with four factors and three levels each, the fractional design used are L9(34 ) orthogonal array. This control factors has been design from the design of experiment using the Taguchi Robust Design Method in order to optimize the machining parameter in different cutting mode with focusing on investigation of surface roughness and chip formation. The Taguchi method proposed to reach characteristic data by using orthogonal arrays (OA), and to analyze the performance measure from the data to decide the optimal process parameters by utilized analysis of variance (ANOVA). Orthogonal arrays employed to study the whole parameter space with a small number of experiments only. The standardized Taguchi-based experimental design was used in this experiment and is shown in Table 2. In determines the quality characteristic implemented in

Type of operations Work Specimen Materials Tool Diameter Cutting tool (insert) MQL supply

The dry cutting was performed without any air blow meanwhile the air cutting was performed with air blow. For the minimal cutting fluid application, the parameter of application was set at the lubricant pressure of 10bar and delivery rate of 150ml/min. The cutting fluid used was neat cutting oil ECOCUT SSN 322 from FUCHS. The direction of application was set against the feed direction.

The MQL needs to be supply at high pressure through the nozzle at the cutting zone. Considering the conditions required for the present research work and uninterrupted supply of MQL at constant pressure over a reasonably long cut, a MQL delivery system has been designed, fabricated and used. The schematic view of the MQL system is shown in Figure 1. Continues solid stream of MQL was projected from a nozzle along the cutting edge of the insert to be sure that the coolant reaches as close to the chip-tool and the worktool interfaces as possible. The photographic view of the experimental set-up is shown in Figure 2. The MQL is expected to effects mainly in the cutting temperature during machining. The effectiveness, efficiency and overall economy of machining any work material depend largely only on the machinability characteristics of the tool-work material under the recommended condition. The machining performance usually judged by factors (i) cutting temperature and cutting tool performance, (ii) pattern and chip formation, (iii) surface finish, and (iv) tool wear and tool life. The present work the factor that considered is tool wear, surface roughness and chip formation in order to study the role and affect of minimum quantity lubrication on machining performance. The surface roughness of the machined surface after each cut was measured by aMarh perthometer using a sampling five specific points along the first 150mm of cutting distance.

At the end of full cut, the chip formation are collected and observed under scanning tool maker microscope (Sometech) along with the cutting inserts.

3. EXPERIMENTAL DISCUSSION

RESULTS

AND

The influence of cutting condition towards surface roughness and chip formation in term of different cutting speed, feed rate, axial depth of cut and different lubricant can be investigate through a series of experiment. The evaluation of the effectiveness of all cutting condition is based upon the comparison of surface roughness and chip formation. Surface roughness is one of the important physical variables that embody relevant process information in machining. It was an important index of machinability because performance and service life of the machined component are often affected by its surface finish, nature and extent of residual stresses and presence of surface. Surface finish influences not only the dimensional accuracy of machined parts, but also their properties. This factor is important to machining due to its ability to produce good surface finish. This type of information not only can assist in understanding surface finish but also in critical machining attributed such as machinability, cutter wear/ fracture, machine tool cutter, and machine accuracy.

Figure 1: The schematic view of the MQL system

Figure 2: The Photographic view of experiment setup Generally, good surface finish, if essential, is achieved by finishing process like grinding but sometimes it is left to machining. Even if it is to be finally finished by grinding, machining prior to that needs to be done with surface roughness as low as possible to facilitate and economize the grinding operation and reduce initial surface defects as far as possible. (N.R Dhar et al. 1995). During machining, the cutting tool travel in certain velocity as workpiece increased. Thus, the chip formation can determined the machining performances that are relevant to present work. Therefore the most important parameters in present work to investigate in order to get improvement of surface roughness to get the good quality product even machining using the high speed milling machining. Figure 3 shows the graph of data distribution of experiment. The target performance measure (TPM) for this present work was the average or mean value for surface roughness and chip formation where this value used to identify control factors that largely affect the mean. These factors are called target control factors that used to adjust the mean response to target. ANOVA proposes that make to target approach to manufacturing. In this approach there will be always be manufacturer aims to meet the optimum machining operating parameter. The present work aims are better product surface roughness and good cooler chips. The type of quadratic loss function applied for this purposes is smaller-the-better, which target value is zero and the level that optimizes the mean has been chosen. Percent contribution (rho) determine the contribution of a factor to an effect. Error refers to unknown and uncontrolled factors. If the percent contribution due to error is low (15% or less), then it can be assumed that no important factors have been omitted from the experiment. If the percent contribution due to error is high (15% or more), then it can be assumed that some important factor have been omitted, condition were not well controlled or there was a large measurement error. The optimum parameter for each performance analysis is determined from response table as shown in Table 4. The TPM Pareto ANOVA in percentage is shown in Figure 4. The minimum value of TPM is chosen as the optimum level for each factor. Table 4: The response table of surface roughness performance TPM Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Range SSQ Rank Opt A 1.185 0.822 0.582 0.703 1.108 4 A3 B 0.483 1.047 1.060 0.398 1.305 2 B1 C 0.475 0.676 1.439 0.480 3.103 1 C1 D 0.615 0.758 1.217 0.444 1.186 3 D1

Figure 3: The graph of data distribution of experiment. Figure 4 shows factor which most affects the performance of surface roughness was feed rate (43.75% contributed), follow by depth of cut (17.91%), and type of cooling (16.02%) and lastly was cutting speed (15.08%). Error of the test is below 15%, it can be assumed that the condition is under controlled and the optimum parameter selection as shown in table 4. From the response table the optimum set of conditions was then selected by choosing all factors levels with the lowest percentage of defectives since the percentage of defectives is a smaller-the-better quality characteristic. In order of ranking, the optimum condition is therefore C1, B1, and D1 and lastly is A3. for surface roughness. The result shows that the surface roughness increased with the lowest in cutting speed while the feed rate give more effect to surface roughness which contributed the highest ranking between the other factors. Table 5: The value of surface roughness results during confirmation experiment. Exp. OP C1 OP C2 A 10610 10610 B 0.5 0.75 C 0.05 0.05 D MQL Air TPM 0.122 0.2466

MQL appeared to be effective in reducing surface roughness. However, it is evident that MQL improves surface finish depending upon the worktool materials and mainly through controlling the deterioration of the auxiliary cutting edge by abrasion, chipping and built-up edge formation. The quality of the surface plays a very important role in the performance of milling as a good-quality milled surface significantly improves fatigue strength, corrosion resistance, or creep life. Surface roughness also affects several functional attributes of parts, such as contact causing surface friction, wearing, light reflection, heat transmission, ability of distributing and holding a lubricant, coating, or resistant fatigue. Therefore, the desired finish surface is usually specified and the appropriate parameters are selected to reach the required quality. The chip deforms when cutting tool travel at certain velocity as workpiece is increased. Therefore with this chip formation determined the machining performances can be determined where it is relevant to this present work.

Figure 4: TPM Pareto ANOVA in percentage Therefore the chosen level that can minimizes the value of TPM, which is at cutting speed of 10610 rpm, depth of cut of 0.5mm, feed rate of 0.05mm/tooth and for cooling mode was MQL. Result from confirmation experiment was 0.122m as shown in Table 5. From the Figure 3 the lowest depth of cut gives the most optimum surface roughness value. The good combination with using the lowest depth of cut, highest cutting speed and MQL cooling system gives more influence to get the best result

An appropriate combination of cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut will enhance the tool life as well as maintain a good quality of machined surface. The chip formation mechanism, during the machining is mainly influenced by cutting speed. Increases in cutting speed results in the decreases in saw toothed chip. At higher cutting speed, the mechanism of deformation on shear plane involves local weakening of material due to intense heat generation. From figure 5 shows that the chip obtained in the case of MQL are much smaller than those obtained under different cutting conditions. Chip produced in dry cutting modes is the longer and bigger. It is because workpiece softening close to the cutting zone, which makes easier, chip formation. However, at increases cutting speed, chip formation is largest for air cutting than dry cutting. It is because increase cutting speed did not allow an increase efficiency of the fluid cooling effect and so the workpiece became heated and lost some of its strength and hardness, even with cutting fluid. Therefore, MQL proved its ability between dry and air coolant.

iii. From the Taguchis robust design method, smaller depth of cut (0.5mm), lower feed rate (0.05mm/tooth), and high cutting speed (10610rpm) can produce smaller surface roughness in slot milling of die steels. iv. Surface roughness increased with the increase of the feed rate. v. Chip formation depending on the cutting speed; when machining with the cutting speed around 10610rpm or above, the chip formation produces are much thinner compared with the chip produced by machining with lower cutting speed slower.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank University of Malaya, who provided the research fund for this project, as well as a scholarship.

REFERENCES
N.R. Dhar, M.T. Ahmed, S. Islam (2007). An experimental investigation on effect of minimum quantity lubrication in machining AISI 1040 steel. International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture, volume 47, pp 748 753. N.R. Dhar, S. Islam, Improvement in machinability characteristics and working environment by minimum quantity lubrication, CASR Project Report, BUET, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2005. Klocke F, Eisenblatter G(1997) Dry cutting. Ann CIRP 46(2):5195267. Toenshoff HK, Arendt C, Ben Amor R (2000) Cutting hardened steel.Ann CIRP 49(2) Dural U. Braga, Anselmo E. Diniz, Gilberto W.A. Miranda, Nivaldo L. Coppini, Using a minimum quantity of lubricant (MQL) and a diamond coated tool in the drilling of aluminum-silicon alloys, Journal of Material Processing Technology, Vol. 122, 2002, pp. 127-138. Thanonsak Thepsonthi, Investigation into minimal cutting fluid application in high speed milling of hardened steel using carbide mills, M. Eng. Dissertation, UM, Malaysia, 2005. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES First Author is a student at the Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She can be reached at <izzahyassin@gmail.com>

Figure 5: Chip formation in experiment

4. CONCLUSION
Based on the results of the present experimental investigation the following conclusions can be drawn: i. The surface roughness is better when machining using the MQL system compared with the dry and air method because MQL provides the benefits mainly by reducing the cutting temperature which improves the tool-chip interaction. This is mainly due to reduction in feed rate, axial depth of cut and radial depth of cut and increasing the cutting speed. ii. MQL continues solid stream provided reduced tool wear, and better surface finish as compared to dry and air machining of steel.