Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Coolant Temperature on Cutting Tool Wear in the Machining Process

Abstract

In machining processes, the heat generated in the cutting zone varies depending on cutting parameters such as depth of cut, cutting speed and feed rate. On the other hand, in most existing machine tools, the flow rate of the coolant sent to the cutting zone is constant, and there is no additional cooling system in the tank. Therefore, the temperature of the coolant circulating in the closed circuit in the system is constantly increasing, which negatively affects cutting performance. This study aims to investigate the effect of coolant temperature on tool wear in the machining process and to control the coolant temperature. For this purpose, a comprehensive coolant temperature control system was developed and integrated into the CNC machine tool. Thanks to this system, it was possible to automatically control the temperature of the cutting fluid (coolant) and maintain it within a constant temperature range throughout the cutting process. Thus, experiments were conducted at different temperatures with different cutting parameters and coolant emulsion ratios using the developed system. Since the cutting parameters interact with each other, the Taguchi method was used to observe the effect of each parameter and to determine the optimum cutting parameters. As a result, it was observed that tool wear was reduced, tool life was extended and unnecessary coolant use was prevented, especially at low temperatures. In addition, the amount of coolant used is expected to reduce negative environmental impacts.

Keywords

• drilling
• tool wear
• tool life
• coolant temperature