Evaluation of coconut oil as a metal working fluid

Abstract

The cutting fluids are responsible for reducing heat at tool work interface, reducing the cutting force, easy chip removal, high material removal rate (MRR), lubrication improvement between tool and work piece and thereby improving the surface finish. Good lubricating capacity, less viscosity, better heat removal rate, high heat conductivity and specific heat are the desired flow and heat transfer parameters of cutting fluids. The development of lubricants like cutting fluids traditionally has mineral oil as base fluid. This fact is related to the technical properties and the reasonable price of mineral oils. Issues of using fluids in machining related to health, environment, and manufacturing cost that need to be solved and options to reduce their use has to be developed. Hence there arises the need for an ecologically friendly metal working fluid in machining operations. This study was aimed at analyzing whether coconut oil can be used as a metal working fluid. The most important properties that were determined were density, kinematic viscosity and flash point. These were tested basing on ASTMD methods and were compared with properties of straight mineral oil metal working fluids following their recommended values.