Development of an automated coolant system for CNC machine

Chee, Kai Sin (2017) Development of an automated coolant system for CNC machine. Project Report. Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

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Abstract

In current manufacturing industry, two types of cooling methods which are widely used are dry machining and wet cooling method. However, both cooling methods consists of the disadvantages which result in bringing detrimental effects to the workpiece, tooling, health ecosystem and environment. Furthermore, with the used of wet cooling method, only 10% to 15% of the coolants are able to play their role in cooling the workpiece while the rest of the coolants are just wasted. This will increase in waste and production cost. Hence, an idea of using PLC to control the amount of coolants and the timing of the coolants supply is inspired. Therefore, the aim of this project is to develop a time-based coolant supply system and comparing the performance with the previous cooling methods. The structure for this project is divided into two core sections which are hardware and software. In hardware part, the PLC is connected to the washing machine inlet control valve and adjusting the opening and closing of the valve. In software part, the ladder diagram is built. The timing is set to close the valve and after some specific amount of times passed, the valve will open and continue supplying coolants before closing again due to the time settling. The analysis applied in the experiment are performance test of unloaded coolants as well as with time- based coolant, where the result will be referring to workpiece surface quality. The performance for each time interval of coolants supply is analysed through the obtaining of the surface roughness from each milling part. The reading of the surface roughness is taken by the used of Mitutoyo roughness tester in Metrology Lab. The results obtained shows that surface roughness for 5s on-off coolants supply is higher than the conventional cooling technique while the surface roughness for 10s to 20s on-off coolants supply is largely improved and much better than the conventional cooling technique. However, the roughness results for 25s on-off coolant supply is worse than 20s on-off coolants supply but it is much better than the wet cooling technique.

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