A comparative study on dry milling and little quantity lubricant milling based on vibration signals

Green manufacturing is the theme of manufacturing industry in the 21st century. In order to realize green manufacturing, it is critical to decrease the usage of cutting fluid in machining as much as possible. Presently, there are still a lot of difficulties in the adoption of dry cutting and MQL cutting for various reasons. This paper presents a new method called little quantity lubrication (LQL) in machining and a comparative study on dry milling and LQL milling based on vibration signals. The vibration signals were acquired from workpiece surface in peripheral milling and were analyzed in time domain, frequency domain and time-frequency domain. The results show that vibration signals can be significantly affected by cutting fluid in milling process. For the sake of reducing vibration and cutting fluid usage, process parameters should be considered while deciding whether or not and how to apply cutting fluid. This research gives a valuable insight in applying LQL in machining. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.