Dispersion stability and thermophysical properties of environmentally friendly graphite oil-based nanofluids used in machining

As environmentally friendly cutting fluids, vegetable-based oil and ester oil are being more and more widely used in metal cutting industry. However, their cooling and lubricating properties are required to be further improved in order to meet more cooling and lubricating challenges in high-efficiency machining. Nanofluids with enhanced heat carrying and lubricating capabilities seem to give a promising solution. In this article, graphite oil-based nanofluids with LB2000 vegetable-based oil and PriEco6000 unsaturated polyol ester as base fluids were prepared by ultrasonically assisted two-step method, and their dispersion stability and thermophysical properties such as viscosity and thermal conductivity were experimentally and theoretically investigated at different ultrasonication times. The results indicate that graphite-PriEco6000 nanofluid showed better dispersion stability, higher viscosity, and thermal conductivity than graphite-LB2000 nanofluid, which made it more suitable for application in high-efficiency machining as coolant and lubricant. The theoretical classical models showed good agreement with the thermal conductivity values of graphite oil-based nanofluids measured experimentally. However, the deviation between the experimental values of viscosity and the theoretical models was relatively big. New empirical correlations were proposed for predicting the viscosity of graphite oil-based nanofluids at various ultrasonication times.