Vegetable oils as a potential cutting fluid—An evolution

A review is made here to understand the application of vegetable oils as potential metal working fluids. The study highlights the contributions from more than sixty authors on vegetable based oils as emerging environmental friendly cutting fluids. The performance of these oils as emulsions and straight oils for various materials and machining conditions are reported. The study focuses on the evolution of vegetable oils as cutting fluids in manufacturing sector, particularly, metal cutting and metal forming.It is observed that, most of the contributions are directed to develop and commercialise the cutting fluids based on vegetable oils. However, soyabean, sunflower and rapeseed seem to possess the relevant properties as a potential cutting fluid.