Machining with Internally Cooled Toolholder Using a Phase Change Fluid

Abstract

The cutting fluid application is the most usual method for cooling the cutting tool, however it is harmful to the environment and to the human being health, besides it represents a significative part of the production costs. One recent alternative method for eliminating the cutting fluid in machining employ a toolholder with internal cooling, but to make it efficient and economically viable, it is necessary to study the behavior of thermal energy in its interior in order to get better efficiency in heat removal from the cutting tool. This study proposes to develop a model of three-dimensional transient heat conduction, discretized by a non-uniform mesh, to estimate the temperature and heat flux at any point of the set of cutting tool and toolholder. The calibration of the virtual model of the set was made using the finite element method, correlating it with experimental tests of turning by using thermocouple to mensure the temperatures on the body of the toolholder along the time. The results show that it is possible to obtain a close correlation of the model with the experimental results.