Milling of aerospace alloys using supercritical CO2 assisted machining

Novel “sub-zero” cooling methods are an emerging technology employed in machining of aerospace alloys that has been the focus of substantial ongoing research. A series of different cooling media have been used in an effort to decrease the friction and the amount of heat generated in the cutting zone. This study focused on the use of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) as a coolant in the face milling of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V. Traditional flood emulsion coolant was compared with through tool scCO2 as well as scCO2 with minimum quantity lubrication (MQL).