Cutting force reduction and surface quality improvement in machining of aerospace duralumin AL-2017-T4 using carbon onion nanolubrication system

In machining of very high precision Duralumin AL-2017-T4 for aerospace applications, the shape varieties of the product lead to many different complicated shapes to be developed. The computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine facilities provides a wide variety of parameter set-up, making the machining process on the Duralumin AL-2017-T4 excellent in manufacturing complicated special products compared with other machining processes. However, the demand for high quality and fully automated production focuses attention on the cutting process, which are partial determinant of the quality of surface and affects the appearance, function, and reliability of the products. The key solution is to increase the effectiveness of existing lubrication systems in the machining process in order to improve product quality as it could reduce the friction component at the tool–chip interface. For further improvement, introducing the nanolubrication system could reduce the cutting force and produce much better surface quality as the rolling action of billions units of nanoparticles at the tool–chip interface could reduce the coefficient of friction significantly. In this study, carbon onion has been used as nanoparticle mixed with ordinary mineral oil at different concentrations to investigate the cutting force reduction and the surface quality improvement of CNC end-milling machined Duralumin AL-2017-T4. From the results, with using of carbon onion nanolubricant, the cutting force and surface roughness values are reduced by 21.99 and 46.32 %, respectively, compared with the case of using ordinary lubrication systems. This can be attributed to the tribological properties of carbon onion, which reduces the coefficient of friction at the tool–chip interface during the machining process.