PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF CASTOR SEED OIL AND MINERAL OIL BASED CUTTING FLUIDS IN TURNING AISI 1020 MILD STEEL

There is a global challenge with the roles of cutting fluids in machining operations with the setback associated with the use of mineral oil; the desire for eco – friendly, health related hazards elimination, biodegradability, minimized disposal cost and so on cannot be overemphasized. In this study, the focus is on comparing the performance of castor oil based cutting fluid (CBCF) with mineral oil based cutting fluid (MBCF) during turning of AISI 1020 Mild steel workpiece. Castor seed oil was used to formulate the oil-in-water emulsion cutting fluid with characteristics showing viscosity of 0.830 mm 2 /s, pH value of 8.47, high stability, corrosion resistant and milky in colour. The FAC shows the ricinoleic acid as 86.43%. Palmitic, (0.72%) and Stearic, (0.85%) are the major saturated fatty acid. Octanoic acid, (0.34%) and Pentanoic acid, (1.38%) are the other fatty acid present. An approximately 94.48% unsaturated fatty acid with main contributors being 86.43% ricinoleic acid, 4.93% oleic acid, 2.97% linoleic acid and 0.15% linolenic acid with others. The S/N ratio for CBCF and MBCF are 800 CS, 0.4 FR and 0.8 doc; and 800 CS, 0.4 FR and 0.6 DOC respectively with R-sq and R-sq(pred) values as 95.52% and 92.83 under the CBCF and lastly 94.33% and 91.25% under the MBCF for surface roughness respectively. The R-sq and R-sq(pred) values are 88.48 % and 81.57 % under the CBCF and lastly 97.39 % and 95.82 % under the MBCF for tool wear respectively.