Investigations on hard turning with minimal cutting fluid application (HTMF) and its comparison with dry and wet turning

Environmental concerns call for the reduced use of cutting fluids in metal cutting practice. New cutting techniques are to be investigated to achieve this objective. Hard turning with Minimal Fluid application (HTMF) is one s uch technique, which can alleviate the pollution problems associated with c utting fluids. In-the-present work a specially formulated cutting fluid was applied as a high velocity, thin pulsed jet at the immediate cutting zones at an extremely low rate of 2 ml/min using a fluid application system deve loped for this purpose during turning of hardened steel. The performance of HTMF is studied in comparison with that of conventional hard turning in we t and dry form. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.