Development of a new lean lubrication system for near dry machining process

The minimal quantity of lubricant supply (MQL) technique has been applied to environment friendly machining processes. However, in the MQL technique, a large volume of oil mist is discharged to the environment. in this paper, a new lean lubrication system for a near dry machining process called direct oil drop supply system (DOS) is proposed. The performance of the DOS technique was evaluated by the milling processes. The DOS technique can supply a very small oil drop directly to the cutting edge without making oil mist, and the DOS shows almost same machining performances compared to the MQL technique. (c) 2008 CIRP.