INVESTIGATION OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND SURFACE ROUGHNESS IN ORTHOGONAL TURNING OF AISI-304 ALLOY STEEL USING FORMULATED VEGETABLE OIL-BASED CUTTING FLUID

Abstract

This research focuses on investigation of energy consumption in orthogonal turning of AISI 304 alloy steel, with a view of coming up with optimized parameters to accomplish minimum energy consumption and surface roughness in dry and wet cutting environments using mineral oil and vegetable oil based cutting fluids. The procedure involved sourcing of mineral and Jathropha vegetable oil. The vegetable oil was subjected to GC-MS test to ascertain the fatty acid composition profile followed by formulation of emulsion cutting fluids from both mineral oil and the vegetable oil. The formulated mineral oil and Jathropha vegetable oil cutting fluids were then characterised and mineral oil-based cutting fluid was found to have a viscosity of 1.00mm2 /s and pH value of 8.65. Both cutting fluids are corrosion resistant, milky in colour and of acceptable stability. Orthogonal turning experiments were then carried out based on design of experiment (DOE) using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) via minitab 17 statistical software. The input parameters for the experiments were cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut while the measured responses were specific energy consumption and surface roughness. The results obtained from the orthogonal turning experiments were subjected to both Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and signal to noise (S/N) ratio analysis using minitab 17 statistical software. In dry turning, the ANOVA analysis revealed that depth of cut is most significant to both energy consumption (83.11%) and surface roughness (37.69%). In wet turning with mineral oil based cutting fluid, the ANOVA analysis showed that cutting speed is most significant to energy consumption (38.87%) while depth of cut is most significant to surface roughness (40.80%). In wet turning with vegetable oil based cutting fluid, the ANOVA analysis showed that feed rate is most significant to both energy consumption (52.44%) and surface roughness (92.77%). Multi response optimization via grey relational analysis (GRA) was also carried out and the result obtained was also subjected to ANOVA analysis. The ANOVA analysis of energy consumption and surface roughness in dry turning showed that depth of cut has the highest significant effect (43.89%) on both responses combined. In wet turning with mineral oil based cutting fluid, the most significant factor for the combined responses is depth of cut. (55.12%). In wet turning with vegetable oil based cutting fluid, the most significant factor was depth of cut (66.31%)