Cryogenic CO2assisted hard turning of AISI 52100 with robust CO2delivery

Cryogenic-assisted hard turning arises a promising sustainable manufacturing technology, emerging as an interesting alternative to conventional grinding. The replacement of traditional metalworking fluids for cryogenic CO2cooling presents significant environmental benefits as well as the potential process performance improvement. In this paper, a novel cryogenic CO2delivery system which enables CO2mass flow and phase control is introduced. In this way, more stable and localized cooling of the cutting zone is obtained in comparison to direct connection delivery systems reported in literature. Finally, this system is employed to perform hard turning tests of hardened bearing steel 52100, where tool wear and surface integrity results are compared to dry air blow and conventional cooling conditions. The application of the cryogenic cooling was found to improve conventional cooling and dry cutting conditions for semi-finishing operations at elevated cutting speeds.