Influence of texture shape and arrangement on nanofluid minimum quantity lubrication turning

Due to the stringent requirements of carbon emissions, traditional cutting using a large amount of mineral-based metal cutting fluid for lubrication no longer fulfilled the rigorous requirements of policies and standards. Nanofluid minimum quantity lubrication has been proven to be a new process to achieve clean manufacturing. However, due to adhesive contact friction, lubricant droplets cannot effectively penetrate the tool and workpiece interface during continuous turning. Changing the microstructure of the rake face of the tool, such as the micro-texture, may provide a geometric channel for the diffusion of the lubricant. However, the effects of micro-texture geometry and arrangement on the film formation and tribological properties of droplets have not been revealed yet. The spreading behavior of minimum quantity lubrication atomized microdroplet on the textured surface was calculated by hydrodynamic modeling. It was proven that the microchannel can effectively store the lubricating medium atomized by compressed air pneumatics. Furthermore, a comparative experiment was conducted on the influence of the texture arrangement on the cutting performance through the turning experiment. Results show that the microgrooves in the direction perpendicular to the main cutting edge obtained the lowest cutting force. The feed force, radial force, and tangential force were reduced by 13.46%, 16.23%, and 6.34%, respectively. Meanwhile, the texture arranged parallel to the cutting edge and crosswise increased the cutting force. The arrangement of the texture perpendicular to the main cutting edge direction obtained the optimal workpiece surface, the smallest chip curling radius, and the smoothest chip surface. Under the optimized texture arrangement, the anti-wear and anti-friction properties of nanofluids in the cutting area are enhanced.