Dry cutting effect in turning of a duplex stainless steel as a key factor in clean production

The machining of duplex stainless steel usually involves the application of cutting fluids, which consequently leads to negative ecologic, environmental and health impacts. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to identify the optimal machining strategy and conditions, which will lead to the reduction of pollution generated by cooling/lubricating with coolants and emulsions, as well as the reduction of energy consumption during manufacturing process. The research program included longitudinal turning tests with the application of three different carbide tools. The experiments were carried out in dry and cooling/lubricating conditions, and involved the measurements of surface roughness, cutting force components and tool life. The results presented demonstrate that dry turning with the appropriately selected cutting tool grade and machining conditions induce almost three-fold growth of tool life in comparison to that obtained during cutting with fluids. The results show that the cutting tool life of duplex stainless steel depends on the following problems: difficult chip control and excessive thermal and mechanical loads of the cutting tool. It was also concluded that a rational solution in terms of energy consumption is machining without cooling, which involves combination of high cutting speed with low feed rate. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.