Government legislation and public opinion are the main drivers behind the movement of manufacturing companies towards sustainable production. Fundamentally, companies want to avoid future financial penalties and the industry is therefore under pressure to adapt new techniques and practices in order to become environmentally friendly. The cost efficiency of metal cutting operations is highly dependent on accuracy, excellent surface finish and minimised tool wear and, to this end, has traditionally made abundant use of cutting fluid in machining operations. However, these cutting fluids have been a major contributor to environmental and health issues. In recent years an enormous effort to eradicate these adverse effects has been made with one important focus being the implementation of minimum quantity lubrication (MQL). In the present work the authors have reviewed the current state of the art in MQL with a particular focus on drilling, turning, milling and grinding machining operations.Overall it is concluded that MQL has huge potential as a substitute for conventional flood cooling.

Modern machine tools now consume far more energy than their predecessors, a contradiction in terms since manufacturing organisations expect machining to be carried out in the most sustainable and cost effective way. The goal for environmentally conscious manufacturing is to consume minimum energy and produce minimum atmospheric emissions, liquid and solid waste. Dry machining is obviously the most ecological form of metal cutting as there are no environmental issues for coolant use or disposal to consider. This research was implemented in an industrial situation in a local small to medium sized enterprise (SME) in Western Australia to determine the technical, economic and environmental benefits of the replacement of traditional flood cooling with Minimum Quantity Liquid (MQL). The use of MQL and air reduced the greenhouse gas emissions and eco-toxicity associated with the disposal of the contaminated liquid. It was found that this alternative cooling method increased the performance of the metal cutting operation.

No abstract

No abstract