Environmentally Friendly Coolant System

Abstract

Energy reduction through the use of the EFCS is most improved by increasing machining productivity. Throughout testing, nearly all machining operations demonstrated less land wear on the tooling when using the EFCS which results in increased tool life. These increases in tool life advance into increased productivity. Increasing productivity reduces cycle times and therefore reduces energy consumption. The average energy savings by using the EFCS in these machining operations with these materials is 9%. The advantage for end milling stays with flood coolant by about 6.6% due to its use of a low pressure pump. Face milling and drilling are both about 17.5% less energy consumption with the EFCS than flood coolant. One additional result of using the EFCS is improved surface finish. Certain machining operations using the EFCS result in a smoother surface finish. Applications where finishing operations are required will be able to take advantage of the improved finish by reducing the time or possibly eliminating completely one or more finishing steps and thereby reduce their energy consumption. Some machining operations on specific materials do not show advantages for the EFCS when compared to flood coolants. More information about these processes will be presented later in the report. A key point to remember though, is that even with equivalent results, the EFCS is replacing petroleum based coolants whose production produces GHG emissions and create unsafe work environments.