Machining with less coolant

摘要

It's common practice in manufacturing to rely on coolants to keep the machine, cutting tools, and workpieces thermally stable and undamaged. Coolant also washes away chips. But coolant has significant costs. These include the costs for buying, filtering, separating, and disposing of it, not to mention EPA documentation requirements. All together they make up 15% of the entire life cycle cost of a machine tool. Tighter EPA rules are on the horizon for using and disposing of coolant, along with protecting workers from it. These rules will surely raise the cost of using coolant. (It already costs more to get rid of coolant than it does to buy it.) A new approach, Minimum Quantity Lubricant (MQL) machining, could change the situation. Though primarily used for aluminum, MQL is an economical, environmentally friendly alternative to wet machining.