Research on surface integrity in graphene nanofluid MQL milling of TC21 alloy

As a new type of damage-tolerance titanium alloy, TC21 alloy is widely used in aerospace. However, TC21 is a difficult-to-machine material owing to its low thermal conductivity, high chemical activity and low elasticity modulus. In this work, minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) with graphene nanofluid was adopted in TC21 milling. In order to evaluate the effects of graphene nanoparticle on the surface integrity, a series of milling experiments were performed under the dry, gas, pure MQL and graphene nanofluid MQL condition respectively. Results showed that the graphene additive was effective for improving the surface integrity. Overall, the results could be explained that graphene additive could enhance the cooling and lubrication performances of the oil film formed in cutting zone. The findings of this work are expected to give a feasibility and some experimental basis for the application of the graphene additive in MQL milling.