Potential of alternative lubrication strategies for metal cutting processes: a review

In the last many decades, the usage of cutting fluid is a common technique for improving the machinability of metals. The application of cutting fluid during the machining phase significantly influences the environmental burden of the process. The disposal of these cutting fluids imposes threat to the environment due to their high noxiousness and non-biodegradable. Several researchers in the metal cutting sector have focused their work to improve the economic and ecological conditions of the machining process by reducing the consumption of the cutting fluids. There is a need to explore different green and innovative techniques to facilitate cooling and lubrication during the machining phase. The conventional cutting fluids not only have environmental and health restrictions, but also they are costly due to the strict regulations for disposal. In this paper, sustainable nature of different cutting fluids has been investigated. The paper also provides a detailed review of the cooling strategies with respect to their environmental impact on human’s health and developments in eradicating the usage of conventional cutting fluids has also been reviewed. Furthermore, different environment friendly cooling strategies, mainly minimum quantity of lubrication (MQL), and cryogenic arrangement have been reviewed in the literature, and it is found that there is a giant scope of further research work to optimize these cooling strategies in order to make them functionally applicable.