The Challenge of Achieving Sustainable Metal cutting

As a result of today's consumer society and resulting greenhouse CO2 emissions, the twenty-first century has heralded a wave of predictions of global warming. This has given rise to researchers increasing interest in environmental issues. Historically manufacturing industries have endeavoured to manufacture products with least cost often with scant regard for the environment. Government regulations and a carbon cost for the effects of pollution have now altered the perception of many manufacturing organisations, with many attempting to obtain a neutral effect on the environment. The goal for manufacturing is to consume minimum energy and produce minimum atmospheric emissions, liquid and solid waste. However, modern machine tools appear to be at odds to this goal, as they now increasingly use additional auxiliary equipment, resulting in an increased use of power. This identifies the importance of examining the energy input to the machine tool. Unfortunately, most of the auxiliary energy requirements are necessary for economic manufacturing making it difficult to reduce this energy use. Closer examination of the non-machining power revealed that the only suitable reduction of energy input that could be made is by eliminating flood coolant. Researchers have established that the cost of liquid coolant and the disposal of the contaminated liquid accounts for 17% of the cost of a machined part. In addition there is a power cost for the coolant pump making this a most suitable area to eliminate. This paper will show that cold air with the addition of a minimum quantity of vegetable oil will provide the best sustainable machine process. © Common Ground, B. Boswell, M.N. Islam, All Rights Reserved