Experimental Investigations to Study the Effect of Solid Lubricant MOS₂ on the Performance of Hard Turning

In hard turning, lot of heat is generated due to plastic deformation of the work material, friction at the tool-chip interface and friction between tool and the workpiece. The heat produced in machining adversely affects the quality of the products produced. Cutting fluids have been the conventional choice to deal with this problem. However, due to the environmental restrictions, the use of cutting fluids is restricted. Machining with solid lubricants, cryogenic cooling by liquid nitrogen and minimum quantity lubrication are some of the alternative approaches in this direction. This research work deals with an investigation on using molybdenum disulphide as solid lubricant in order to reduce friction for improving the machining performance and for overcoming some of the limitations that arise due to the use of cutting fluids or while dry hard turning. An experimental setup has been designed and built, and experiments have been conducted to study the effect of using molybdenum disulphide as solid lubricant on surface finish and cutting forces. An improvement in surface finish was observed with molybdenum disulphide assisted hard turning. It was also observed that there was a considerable reduction of cutting forces, thereby reducing the specific energy needed and consequently improving the machining performance.