Estimation of Energy Consumption in Milling Process with Minimum Quantity Lubrication and Comparison with Wet Cutting State

Reducing energy consumption in production is an urgent need. In manufacturing processes, especially machining, more than 90% of the environmental impacts are due to energy consumption in machine tools. The purpose of the present study is to estimate and compare the energy consumption of AISI 316 steel milling process in conventional (wet) and minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) modes as well as the experimental measurement of energy consumption in each of these two modes. Studies have suggested different types of energy consumption modeling in machining but few studies have been conducted on the use of these modeling techniques and the minimum quantity lubrication method has been rarely compared with the wet state in terms of energy consumption. Empirical experiments were used to confirm the modeling performed to predict energy consumption in the milling process. The results show that the proposed method is efficient and practical for predicting energy consumption with 5% error. After confirming the modeling, using two levels for feed rate and spindle speed and applying full factorial design of experiments, energy and power consumption in MQL and wet cutting modes using the power meter connected to the input 3-phase power cable of the milling machine were experimentally measured. Energy consumption in the minimum quantity lubrication method was decreased by 16% compared to the wet state. The average power consumption in MQL milling is 33% lower than in wet milling.