Influence of cryogenic coolant on turning performance characteristics: A comparison with wet machining

Machining of 17-4 Precipitation Hardenable Stainless Steel (PH SS) is one of the difficult tasks because of its high cutting temperatures. Conventional cutting fluids are used to overcome the high cutting temperatures, but these are not acceptable from the health and environmental sustainable points of view. Cryogenic cooling is one of the potential techniques to overcome such problems. In the current work, comparison is made of cryogenic turning results, such as tool flank wear, cutting forces (feed force, main cutting force), cutting temperature, chip morphology and surface integrity characteristics with wet machining during machining of heat-treated 17-4 PH SS. The result showed that in cryogenic machining, a maximum of 53%, 78%, 35% and 16% reductions was observed in tool flank wear, cutting temperature, surface roughness and cutting force, respectively, when compared with wet machining. It was also evident from the experimental results that cryogenic machining significantly improved the machining performance and product quality even at high feed rates.