Experimental investigation on the performance of MQL drilling of AISI 321 stainless steel using nano-graphene enhanced vegetable-oil-based cutting fluid

The present work aims to examine the drilling performance of AISI 321 stainless steel using vegetable-oil-based cutting fluid under different minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) strategies (with and without graphene nanoparticles). Experimental results indicated that MQL drilling with 1.5 wt% of graphene nanoparticles considerably reduced the thrust force (27.4%), torque (64.9%), surface roughness (33.8%) and coefficient of friction (51.7%) at the 30th hole as compared to pure MQL condition and also improved the tool life. In brief, the sufficient quantity of graphene nanoparticles in nanofluid MQL drilling can boost the lubrication performance and increase the stability of lubrication film, which improves the drilling characteristics.