As environmentally friendly cutting fluids, vegetable-based oil and ester oil are being more and more widely used in metal cutting industry. However, their cooling and lubricating properties are required to be further improved in order to meet more cooling and lubricating challenges in high-efficiency machining. Nanofluids with enhanced heat carrying and lubricating capabilities seem to give a promising solution. In this article, graphite oil–based nanofluids with LB2000 vegetable-based oil and PriEco6000 unsaturated polyol ester as base fluids were prepared by ultrasonically assisted two-step method, and their dispersion stability and thermophysical properties such as viscosity and thermal conductivity were experimentally and theoretically investigated at different ultrasonication times. The results indicate that graphite-PriEco6000 nanofluid showed better dispersion stability, higher viscosity, and thermal conductivity than graphite-LB2000 nanofluid, which made it more suitable for application in high-efficiency machining as coolant and lubricant. The theoretical classical models showed good agreement with the thermal conductivity values of graphite oil–based nanofluids measured experimentally. However, the deviation between the experimental values of viscosity and the theoretical models was relatively big. New empirical correlations were proposed for predicting the viscosity of graphite oil–based nanofluids at various ultrasonication times.

A pin-on-disk friction and wear tester was used to investigate the tribological properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes with different sizes and volume fractions as LB2000 vegetable-based oil additive. The wear scar of disk was characterized using scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Furthermore, the lubrication mechanism of multi-walled carbon nanotubes as vegetable-based oil additive was also discussed. It was found that thin and short multi-walled carbon nanotubes could improve the friction-reducing and anti-wear properties of vegetable-based oil more effectively than thick and long multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The optimal volume fraction of thin and short multi-walled carbon nanotubes was found to be 0.05%.

This article developed a three-dimensional finite element model of cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication machining in order to investigate the role of cooling/lubrication effect of cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication in machining of AISI H13 steel. In this model, the cryogenic cooling effect provided by refrigerated compressed air is modeled with a convective heat transfer coefficient. A heat transfer window with the temperature and convective heat transfer coefficient of refrigerated compressed air was defined on tool face and workpiece, respectively, which could move at the same speed as cutting tool so as to simulate continuous cryogenic cooling process of cutting zone under cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication condition. The temperature of refrigerated compressed air was set at −10 °C, −30 °C, −50 °C, −100 °C, and −140 °C to study the influence of cryogenic cooling effect of cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication. Frictional contact between tool and chip was modeled with a simple constant shear stress model. Comparative simulations were conducted under different cooling/lubrication conditions, those are, dry cutting, refrigerated compressed air, and cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication. The simulation results show that both cryogenic cooling effect and lubrication effect resulted in reduction in cutting force and tool temperature when machining AISI H13 steel under cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication condition. With a decrease in temperature of refrigerated compressed air, cutting force and tool temperature did not decrease continuously. The reduction in cutting force, maximum tool temperature, and average temperature of rake face and flank face at low and high cutting speeds was strongly attributed to the cryogenic cooling effect and lubrication effect provided by cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication, respectively. A significant reduction in cutting force and tool temperature was caused by the improvement in lubrication effect provided by cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication irrespective of the cutting speed. The trends revealed by the simulations provide helpful information for the development of this technique.