Use of vegetable oil in water emulsion achieved through ultrasonic atomization as cutting fluids in micro-milling

Significant amount of work is reported on development of vegetable oil based metalworking fluids (MWFs). Many also report on development and performance evaluation of vegetable based oils. For many of these water-based MWFs with vegetable oils, much effort is focused on stable emulsification of vegetable oil in water using a variety of surfactants. It has been found that surfactant-free stable emulsification of oil in water is possible through ultrasonic vibration. However, emulsification through ultrasonic atomization has not yet been considered, and the feasibility of emulsified metalworking fluids through ultrasonic atomization has not been investigated. In this paper, stable emulsification of vegetable oil in water has been achieved through ultrasonic atomization without using any surfactant. The emulsified vegetable oil in water is directly used to investigate its effectiveness as MWF in milling operations. Lower cutting forces, chip thickness, and burr amount are observed with vegetable oil-in-water emulsion compared to conventional MWF. The experimental results show strong potential for vegetable oil-in-water emulsion obtained through ultrasonic atomization as an effective MWF.