Tool wear monitoring under dry and wet machining

External turning operations for steel 37 (AISI 1025) tubes were performed on a center lathe using high-speed steel tools. The workpiece was machined orthogonally using a wide range of cutting speeds for both dry and wet cutting conditions. The tool wear and the constants of the tool life equation (C, n) were studied by changing the cutting speed and the wear criterion. Comparisons between dry and wet cutting for different cutting speeds were performed, and the constants of the tool life equation were studied under different wear criterion values. The economy of dry and wet cutting was also studied under different wear criterion values. As a result of using cutting fluids, percentage increase in the constant C reached 18%, whereas percentage decrease in the constant n reached 7% at 0.9 wear criterion, which leads to a percentage increase in the tool life of about 214%.King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabi