Lubricant Viscosity: Evaluation between Existing and Alternative Lubricant in Metal Forming Process

Lubrication in metal forming process is very important to control wear and friction at the interface between interacting surfaces. Non-renewable resources, such as mineral oil are widely used since a beginning due to its ability to act as a reservoir to the wearing contact which functions as a film material or sustains chemical transformation to become a film material. There is big concern that an alternative metal forming lubricant with similar viscosity able to replace existing metal forming lubricant without neglecting all main factors as demanded by industries. Two additives free paraffinic mineral oil with variable viscosity; VG95 and VG460 and daphnee were choose as existing lubricants, and is compared to an alternative lubricant with similar viscosity; RBD palm stearin and RBD palm kernel. The experiment used a cold work extrusion apparatus consisting of a pair of taper die and a symmetrical work piece (billet). The billet material was annealed pure aluminum A1100 with 45 of edge at the deformation area. It was found that lubricant with high viscosity performed slightly low extrusion load, but resulting higher surface roughness than low viscosity lubricants. However they show no severe wear on product surface.