Low Temperature Machining of Nitrile Rubber

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative methodology to improve machining of nitrile rubber. The research comprises of turning of nitrile rubber under ambient (dry) and low- temperature (dry ice) condition against HSS cutting tool. Individual machining force data for all the tests were documented with the help of a Kistler dynamometer. The low temperatures freeze the material previous to machining so that it cannot alter or adhere to the cutting edge, thus resulting in low wear on the edge and improved machining. To achieve a stable condition for the rubber machining, a mandrel was designed to hold the rubber workpiece.  It was observed that 36.19% reduction in cutting force, 6.08% decrease in radial force and 23.3% drop in feed force were obtained when cutting was made at low-temperature machining as compared to dry cutting with cutting speed increased from 162.58 m/min to 226.19 m/min, with 1 mm depth of cut and tool feed of 0.5 mm/rev. This concludes that a remarkable decrease in cutting force value can be obtained by adopting low-temperature cooling. Thus, this new approach concludes that dry ice machining of nitrile rubber should be amended in a directive to acquire better machining results.