MANUFACTURING RESEARCH OF VORTEX TUBE APPLIED TO MINIMUM QUANTITY LUBRICATION FOR HARD MILLING OF SKD11 TOOL STEEL

Abstract

Minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) has been studied and widely appiled to machining operations due to some superior advantages compared to dry and wet machining. MQL machining uses mixtures of high pressure air and a tiny amount of cutting fluids, which is effectively supplied to the machining interface to reduce the friction.  However, there were limitations to this technique because of its weak cooling effect. To overcome the abovementioned problems, this paper aims to introduce some results of manufacturing research of vortex tool cooling mist system used in MQL for hard milling of SKD11 tool steel (58 – 60HRC). The obtained results reveal that by using this proposed technique, the reduction of cutting forces F_y, F_z is about  86% - 88%, and the tool life reaches 57 minutes (152% higher than that of machining without vortex tool cooling mist system.