Effects of hybrid Al2O3-CNT nanofluids and cryogenic cooling on machining of Ti–6Al–4V

Owing to superior physio-chemical characteristics, titanium alloys are widely adopted in numerous fields such as medical, aerospace, and military applications. However, titanium alloys have poor machinability due to its low thermal conductivity which results in high temperature during machining. Numerous lubrication and cooling techniques have already been employed to reduce the harmful environmental footprints and temperature elevation and to improve the machining of titanium alloys. In this current work, an attempt has been made to evaluate the effectiveness of two cooling and lubrication techniques namely cryogenic cooling and hybrid nanoadditive–based minimum quantity lubrication (MQL). The key objective of this experimental research is to compare the influence of cryogenic CO2 and hybrid nanofluid–based MQL techniques for turning Ti–6Al–4V. The used hybrid nanofluid is alumina (Al2O3) with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) dispersed in vegetable oil. Taguchi-based L9 orthogonal-array was used for the design of the experiment. The design variables were cutting speed, feed rate, and cooling technique. Results showed that the hybrid nanoadditives reduced the average surface roughness by 8.72%, cutting force by 11.8%, and increased the tool life by 23% in comparison with the cryogenic cooling. Nevertheless, the cryogenic technique showed a reduction of 11.2% in cutting temperature compared to the MQL-hybrid nanofluids at low and high levels of cutting speed and feed rate. In this regard, a milestone has been achieved by implementing two different sustainable cooling/lubrication techniques.