Ecological and economical processing of Ti-6Al-4V with an augmentation in grindability

The experimental study is designed towards performance evaluation of unalike non-conventional and environment friendly cutting fluids viz. sodium nitrite, propylene glycol and soap water, while grinding Ti-6Al-4V through an economic SQL-based delivery system in drop-by-drop mode. The study is aimed at finding alternate cutting fluids that are both economic and environment friendly. These fluids have been applied separately during up-grinding of Ti-6Al-4V for 20 consecutive passes using identical alumina wheels and process parameters. Performances of these fluids are compared with conventional grinding fluid and dry grinding under three different cutting depths of 5, 10 and 15 mu m. Through the critical and exhaustive analyses of germane factors of considerations like cutting force and specific cutting energy, average surface roughness, grinding ratio, SEM of the ground surface and chip-forms, the performances of the different unconventional fluids are evaluated and presented here. The results suggest that unconventional fluids are better suited compared with conventional fluids for grinding Ti-6Al-4V. Propylene glycol exhibits the most satisfactory results while reducing the grinding force requirement by 25 to 30%, specific energy by 25 to 32%, surface roughness by 35 to 40% and improving grinding ratio by 3 to 5 times compared with dry grinding and grinding using conventional coolant.