Effectiveness of Using CFD for Comparing Tool Cooling Methods

Abstract

Measuring a tool tip interface temperature has never been an easy task to achieve using thermal couples due to the hostile environment in which thermal couples have to work. Limited success has been achieved from the use of infra-red pyrometers, as the chips are in direct line of sight of the cutting zone. Calculated values (for example, using Cook’s equation) are limited in their usefulness when the generated heat is being continually cooled by flood coolant. This research shows that a computational computer model of the cutting zone can be an effective method of obtaining the tool tip temperature while being cooled. Being able to calculate the tool tip temperature using a computer model allows the effects of changes made to the machining parameters to the cutting zone temperature to be realised. This includes finding the optimum cooling method for particular machining parameters.