Evaluating the effect of minimum quantity lubrication during hard turning of AISI D3 steel using vegetable oil enriched with nano-additives

Abstract

Conventional flood lubrication techniques have serious impacts on the environment, health, and economy. Thus, the implementation of advanced lubrication techniques such as minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) has gained attraction worldwide as a reliable alternative to flood lubrication due to its effectiveness and eco-friendly characteristics. In order to increase the efficiency of MQL, nanoparticles have recently been added to the base fluids to improve the performance of lubrication thanks to their thermo-physical properties. In this work, an eco-friendly vegetable oil called rice bran oil (RBO) was used as a lubrication fluid with and without the addition of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles in order to investigate their influence on the turning performance characteristics, in terms of cutting force, surface roughness, flank wear and cutting temperature, during hard turning of AISI D3 steel. Taguchi L16 orthogonal array was implemented to investigate the effect of turning parameters including cutting speed, feed rate, and depth of cut on the response variables. The results showed that ZnO nanoparticles-enriched base fluid gives better performance than machining with a pure oil in terms of mitigating the severity of cutting force by about 10.68–18.48%, reducing tool wear by about 9.33–51.96%, and reducing the roughness of the machined surface by 3.86–12.84%.