Mechanical processing processes such as cutting, grinding and polishing play a key role in modern industry. The efficiency and quality of these processes directly depend on the lubricants used. Traditional lubricants based on mineral oils are often insufficiently effective under extreme conditions of high temperatures and pressures occurring in the cutting zone. In recent years, the attention of researchers has been attracted by alternative lubricants enriched with nanoparticles, in particular, quasicrystals.
Quasicrystals are materials with a unique atomic structure that are ordered but lack the periodicity of ordinary crystals. Due to their special properties, such as high hardness, low friction coefficient and good thermal stability, quasicrystals are of great interest for use as additives to lubricants.
The introduction of quasicrystals into lubricating fluids can significantly improve their performance characteristics. Quasicrystal nanoparticles can form a protective layer on the surface of the material being processed, reducing friction and wear. In addition, they help remove heat from the cutting zone, preventing overheating and deformation of the part.
Maintaining stable lubrication during metal cutting is a challenging task, given the extreme contact pressures and temperatures that occur in the area where the tool and the workpiece/chip interact. Solid lubricants show promise in high mechanical load conditions. However, their effective operating temperature range is limited, and delivery to the cutting zone is difficult.
Quasicrystals, due to their unique atomic structure, exhibit friction-reducing properties, which distinguishes them from other materials. At present, their application is limited mainly to coating or as a component that improves the tribological properties of composites. The use of quasicrystals as a solid lubricant additive remains insufficiently studied. In this paper, the use of quasicrystals as a solid additive to cutting fluids in mechanical processing is investigated for the first time. Fundamental studies have shown that adding quasicrystals to a water-in-oil emulsion significantly improves the lubricating properties during cutting. This leads to a significant reduction in the forces arising during processing, compared to using only MQL oil. The micromilling process was chosen as a practical demonstration. Experiments have shown that adding quasicrystals can reduce tool wear by more than 60%. Thus, the prospects of using quasicrystals as a solid lubricant for metal cutting were confirmed.
Studies have shown that the use of lubricating fluids enriched with quasi-crystals leads to increased productivity of machining processes, improved surface quality of parts and increased service life of cutting tools. Further research is aimed at optimizing the concentration and size of quasi-crystal nanoparticles in lubricants, as well as developing new types of quasi-crystalline compounds with improved properties.
Author: J. Saelzera, G. Polus a, A. L. Meijer, T. Wolf, J. F. Gerken a, J. Baumann, A. Zabel, D. Biermann, M. Sipura, N. Piljic
Institute: Institute of Materials Processing Technology, Technical University of Dortmund, 44227 Dortmund, Germany, MD Global Trading GmbH, 4654 Bad Wimsbach, Austria, DANEN TRADE GmbH, 5020 Salzburg, Austria