Successful series production with minimum quantity lubrication
Minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) is mature alternative to conventional cooling lubrication, particular in series production. It lowers production costs, investment costs and space requirements as well as reducing the impact on the environment. Di.erent (and very much smaller quantities of) lubricating media and other systems are used for the supply of these media.
Different demands are also made in some cases on the machine tools, tools and tool holders for the minimum quantity lubrication as compared with wet machining. This article looks at the whole minimum quantity lubrication system as it can be successfully used particularly in series production.
Motivation
Minimum quantity lubrication can make a significant contribution to reducing costs in mechanical production. Costs for the conventional cooling lubrication in industrial-scale series production in the automotive industry typically lie between 8% and 16% (1). Apart from the cost reduction aspect, further reasons for the introduction of MQL are the growing number of environmental protection regulations and reduced impacts on the health of the employees.
In some cases, however, minimum quantity lubrication can also lead to a direct improvement in quality of the workpieces. Particularly during the precision machining of aluminium alloys and brass, machining with MQL results in a better surface finish compared with machining using conventional cooling lubrication with emulsion. Reasons for this are the better lubricating e.ect of the MQL media and the absence of any small particles that cannot be filtered out of the conventional cooling lubrication system.
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