Development of new cutting fluid for grinding process adjusting mechanical performance and environmental impact

Many problems are identified with the use of cutting fluids, such as health and environment hazards. There has been a high demand for better adequacy of industrial grinding processes in order to meet the present requirements of safety and protection to the environment. In this scenario new combinations of fluids and grinding wheels have been tested in research projects. The application of grinding wheels using cubic boron nitrite (CBN) abrasives is a strong tendency in grinding. An environmentally friendly fluid has to accomplish some main requirements, such as should not be toxic, biodegradable and should produce low emissions when in use. But also an ideal fluid has to provide good process performance and allow low costs in the application of CBN based tools. This work presents a new grinding fluid formulation able to meet both the performance and environmental requirements. The proposed fluid is based on a sulfonate vegetable oil with high concentration in water for grinding with CBN in high speed. This way it is possible to get high lubricity and good performance on CBN grinding. The tests show that the application of the proposed formula in CBN grinding results in process performance equivalent to the obtained using mineral neat oils. The parameters evaluated were radial wheel wear and workpiece roughness. Chemical analysis shows the new fluid as to be non-toxic and have easy biodegradability. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.