article · Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
Grinding is a critical manufacturing process for producing components requiring superfinishing and ultra-fine resolution. Achieving high productivity and stringent quality while maintaining sustainability presents a significant operational challenge. Mineral and semisynthetic oils provide adequate cooling and lubrication but cause notable harm to the environment and human health. Emulsions help mitigate environmental concerns, yet they present challenges regarding process economics and high energy consumption. Biodegradable and vegetable oils offer eco-friendly alternatives, but their lack of thermal stability impairs effective cooling. Minimising cooling medium quantities improves cost efficiency, though it can compromise overall machinability. Cryogenic lubrication also shows limitations, as it fails to supply sufficient lubrication to minimise friction and reduce energy use. Sustainable grinding requires balancing surface accuracy and quality against energy consumption, environmental footprint, worker safety, and economic feasibility.
Industrial grinding requires large amounts of energy and fluid to achieve high-precision surface finishes. Conventional cutting fluids can harm factory workers and the surrounding environment, while greener alternatives often fail to protect tooling or reduce energy demands. Understanding the trade-offs between different cooling and lubrication methods helps manufacturers select approaches that maintain product quality while reducing ecological and occupational hazards.
This work informs manufacturing engineers, precision component fabricators, and coolant developers seeking to optimise grinding performance. Because the review synthesises existing knowledge rather than validating a specific novel technology, it sits at an early, informational stage. Practical industrial adoption will depend on further development to overcome thermal stability limits in vegetable oils or friction issues in cryogenic setups.
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Grinding technology is an essential manufacturing operation, in particular, when a component with a superfinishing and an ultra-resolution is yearned. Meeting the required strict quality checklist with maintaining a high level of productivity and sustainability is a substantive issue. The recent paper outlines the lubrication and cooling technologies and mediums that are used for grinding. Furthermore, it provides a basis for a critical assessment of the different lubrication/cooling techniques in terms of machining outputs, environmental impact, hygiene effect, etc. Meanwhile, the paper put light on the sustainability of different cooling/lubrication strategies. The sustainability of machining aims to get the product with the best accuracy and surface quality, minimum energy consumption, low environmental impact, reasonable economy, and minimum effect on worker’s health. The paper revealed that despite some cooling/lubrication mediums like mineral oils and semisynthetic, afford sufficient lubrication or cooling, they have a significant negative impact on the environment and public health. On the other hand, emulsions can overcome environmental problems but the economy and the energy consumption during grinding are still a matter of concern. Biodegradable and vegetable oils are considered eco-friendly oils, but they suffer from a lack of thermal stability which affects their ability of efficiently cooling. Using the cooling medium with the lowest amount can achieve the goal of the economy but it may be reflected negatively on the machinability. Furthermore, cryogenic lubrication doesn’t provide sufficient lubrication to reduce friction and hence energy consumption. The research described in the paper is such a comprehensive compilation of knowledge regarding the machinability and machining performance under different cooling and lubrication systems that it will aid the next generation of scientists in identifying current advancements as well as potential future directions of research on ecological aspects of machining for sustainability.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.cja.2023.03.026
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