Retifi cação de cerâmica de alumina relacionada com diferentes técnicas de lubri-refrigeração: convencional e mínima quantidade de lubrifi cação (Grinding of alumina ceramics with different cooling and lubrifi cation techniques: conventional and minimum quantity of lubrifi cation)

Nowadays, environmental concerns are causing companies to seek reduce the environmental impacts caused by them, while improving product quality and manufacturing processes. Therefore, much research is being developed in the machining area to examine the actual damage to the environment by utilizing different methods of lubrifi cation and cooling. This study aimed to analyze the surface roughness of the machined part and the wear of the grinding wheel in the fl at grinding of alumina ceramics with two methods of coolinglubrifi cation: The conventional method with a fl ow rate of 27.5 L/min and the method of the minimum quantity of lubrifi cation (MQL) at 100 mL/h. With the obtained results it’s possible to say that, for the same machining parameters of MQL and conventional techniques, the MQL technique used a much smaller amount of fl uid and assured good results for the diametral wear of the grinding wheel. However, the superfi cial roughness of the piece was worse for the MQL method than the conventional cooling technique. These results showed that using alternative forms of lubrifi cation to reduce the use of cutting fl uid are possible, depending on which factors are most important to the process that is wanted. Accordingly, if the MQL technique was used, it would surely bring, on one hand, the benefi ts of the reduction of the problems of recycling and disposal the cutting fl uid, but on the other hand, leads to a lower surface quality of the parts.