Development of Diluted Working Lubricant for Honing Utilizing Micelle Formation and Polymer Compound

In recent years, the interest of environmental load reduction has rapidly increased and in particular, the requirement for replacing undiluted working lubricant with diluted one has strongly been demanded in the fields of various metal working. However there are extremely few commercial diluted lubricants in the internal honing, because the lubrication and the viscosity of the lubricants are insufficient for obtaining good surface finish. To address the problem, we have developed a new type of diluted working lubricant for the honing. Then a polymer polyalkylene glycol as a basic agent of the lubricant was optimized and a micelle-forming fatty acid and an alkanolamine were introduced to the lubricant. As a result, the newly developed water-soluble working fluid achieved the same good performances, concretely, low honing forces, large depth of cut and good finished surface as those obtained with commercial undiluted lubricant.