Use and performance of soybean oil based bio-lubricant in reducing specific cutting energy during biomimetic machining

Being a renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic crop product, soybean oil has been used as bio-lubricant in various industrial fields. Integrating biomimetics and machining provides great promise for reducing energy consumption in machining industry. The use of properly designed and prepared soybean oil based bio-lubricant in biomimetic machining is expected to further decrease energy consumption in an eco-friendly way. Experimental analysis and theoretical analysis were conducted in this work to explore performance of soybean oil based bio-lubricant in reducing specific cutting energy during biomimetic intermittent turning. The base oil of the biolubricant was set as a mixture of epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) and soybean oil (SBO). Procambarus clarkia and Odontodactylus scyllarus were analyzed to achieve the design of biomimetic machining. This work revealed the effects of the volume ratio of ESBO/SBO on the viscosity and the thermal stability of the base oil. This study further predicted and analyzed the variations of the viscosity and the remaining amount of the base oil in biomimetic machining according to the proposed prediction methods. A theoretical model was established to investigate the performance of the soybean oil based bio-lubricant. More efficient reduction of the specific cutting energy can be obtained by choosing appropriate combinations of the volume ratio of ESBO/SBO and the element area of the tool surface bio-inspired microstructure. The mean remaining amount of the base oil should be kept relatively large to ensure bio-lubricant performance.

Automated summary

Soybean oil, as a bio-lubricant, has important application value in the industry, especially in reducing energy consumption when integrated with biomimetics and machining technology. Properly designed and prepared soybean oil based bio-lubricant is expected to further decrease energy consumption in biomimetic machining. The combination of ESBO/SBO volume ratio and the element area of the tool surface bio-inspired microstructure has a significant impact on reducing specific cutting energy.