Influence of Vegetable Oil Based Cutting Fluids on Tool Wear and Surface Roughness in Turning EN8 Steel Using Tungsten Carbide Tool

Evaluation of the performance of cutting fluids in machining different work materials is of critical importance in order to improve the efficiency of any machining process. The efficiency can be evaluated based on certain process parameters such as flank wear, surface roughness on the work piece, cutting forces developed, temperature developed at the tool-chip interface, etc. The objective of this work is to determine the influence of vegetable oil based cutting fluids in metal working. Honge oil (pongamia oil) is mainly used here for investigation based on tool wear and surface roughness during turning of EN8 steels with carbide tool. An attempt has been made to identify the influence of this cutting oil in reducing the tool wear and surface roughness during turning process. The performance of vegetable oil based cutting oil is also being compared with another two cutting fluids namely an emulsion (mineral oil base) and a synthetic oil. The results indicated that in general, vegetable oil based cutting oil performed better than the other two cutting fluids in reducing the tool wear and improving the surface finish. Vegetable oils have been used as the cutting fluids in this work because of their environmental friendliness, thermal and oxidative stability which is being comparable to other cutting fluids used in the metal cutting industry.