Investigation on influence of hybrid nozzle of CryoMQL on tool wear, cutting force, and cutting temperature in milling of titanium alloys

The titanium alloy has a low thermal conductivity of 1/8th that of common metals and half that of stainless steel. The heat dissipation is poor during dry cutting, so the cutting temperature rises above about 600°C. Due to this, the quality of the cutting surface decreases during machining, and rapid tool wear occurs. To solve this, the use of cutting fluid is essential, but the chemical composition of the cutting fluid has a negative effect on the body and the environment. In the current cutting process, in order to minimize this effect, eco-friendly processing using minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) is performed. The machining method using both MQL and a cryogenic gas separately applies the MQL and the cryogenic gas to both sides of the cutting tool. In this case, the oil mist cannot penetrate the cutting zone due to the spray pressure of the cryogenic gas. Therefore, it is necessary to design a hybrid nozzle that can spray oil mist and cryogenic gas into a single flow. Besides, although the study on the effect of MQL and cryogenic machining on the cutting temperature should be preceded, most of the titanium MQL processing papers only study the material surface and tool wear. Accordingly, in this study, we designed and fabricated the hybrid type nozzle of CryoMQL which combined MQL and a cryogenic gas to improve the spraying concentration. And the cutting temperature generated by the process was measured, and the effectiveness of the proposed nozzle on decreasing the cutting temperature was evaluated. Besides, cutting force and tool wear were analyzed according to each cutting method.