A Parametric Analysis on Micro-Drilling Process With Nanofluid Minimum Quantity Lubrication

This paper presents a parametric analysis on microdrilling process using nanofluid minimum quantity lubrication (MQL). In this paper, the effects of several machining parameters such as a feed rate, rotational speed and drill diameter on micro drilling performances are investigated under various lubrication conditions — compressed air lubrication, pure MQL and nanofluid MQL. For nanofluid MQL, nanodiamond particles are used with the volumetric concentration of 4 %. A series of microdrilling experiments are carried out in the miniaturized machine tool system. The experimental results show the nanofluid MQL can be effective for reducing average drilling torques and thrust forces, in particular, at relatively low feed rate (10 mm/min) and low spindle speed (30,000 RPM) in the case using the drill with small diameter (0.1 mm). Meanwhile, in the case using the drill with large diameter (0.5 mm), the nanofluid MQL may not be effective for reducing average torques and thrust forces.