Application of EDAS method for cutting fluid selection for gear cutting operation.

Tribology plays an important role in various metal cutting industries as it is mainly concerned with the quality of the products produced together with the life of cutting tools in use. With rise in temperature around the machining zone while cutting difficult-to-cut materials that can yield high residual stresses, dimensional deformation, and premature failure of cutting tools. Cutting fluid in this scenario plays an important role while being used as a coolant, lubricant to carry away the heat generated while minimizing the rate of tool wear thereby increasing its life and the quality of products produced. Selection of suitable cutting fluid for a specific machining operation is often influenced by several factors such as machine tool compatibility, interaction with operator, effect on environment, and efficiency which also requires in-depth knowledge of the operator. This paper explores the application potentiality of evaluation based on distance from average solution method for identifying the most appropriate cutting fluid for spur gears cutting using hobbing operation. The result obtained is observed to have high degree of similarity with the results obtained by other popular methods which are also validated from Spearman rank correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]