Machinability of Alloy Steel and Titanium Alloy under Carbon Dioxide Snow, Micro-lubrication and Hybrid Lubro- Cooling

Efficient removal of process heat in machining of high-strength alloys is critical to product quality, process cost and productivity. The paper experimentally investigates the effects of employing a cryogenic coolant (CO 2 snow), micro-lubrication and hybridization of the two on the performance measures, such as tool damage, machining forces and specific cutting energy in cutting of two commonly used high-strength alloys, Ti-6Al-4V and 40NiCrMo6. It was found that although the aforementioned cooling approached improved machinability of both the alloys but the titanium based alloy remained more difficult-to-cut than the alloy steel. Hybrid lubro-cooling and CO 2 snow cooling proved to be the most effective options for machining of 40NiCrMo6 and Ti-6Al-4V, respectively.