Performance evaluation of vegetable emulsifier based green cutting fluid in turning of American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) 1040 steel - an initiative towards sustainable manufacturing

Cutting fluids are widely used in machining. However they pose several health and environmental issues. Several works on vegetable-based cutting fluids have been reported in literature but the prime focus of these works was the replacement of mineral oil with vegetable oil while the emulsifier, which is often the root-cause of all these issues, was never replaced. The present work is an attempt to replace both the mineral oil and petroleum-based emulsifier with vegetable-based alternatives (sesame oil and coconut based emulsifier) and produce a new class of sustainable cutting fluids. The formulated cutting fluids were compared with regular cutting fluid while machining American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) 1040 steel. The findings show that the formulated fluid with 10% vegetable emulsifier content exhibits a performance similar to the regular cutting fluid in terms of cutting temperatures, tool wear and surface roughness. The performance of the 10% coconut emulsifier fluid was better than other fluids with coconut emulsifier. However, cutting forces were less when the regular cutting fluid was used. The formulated fluids can be used in situations with low cutting forces but high cutting temperatures, like machining at higher speeds. The major contribution of the work is the replacement of regular petroleum-based emulsifier with an eco-friendly alternative, in addition to using vegetable oil.