Ecodesign of the Aluminum Bronze Cutting Process

Abstract

The realization of products from materials with high properties generally involves very high energy consumption. Thus, in the research, it was considered to optimize the machining process by cutting of an aluminum bronze alloy, so as to obtain a reduction in energy consumption in correlation with the roughness of the machined surfaces. The research focused on the processing of a semi-finished product with a diameter of Ø = 20 mm made of aluminum bronze (C62300). In addition, in the research, the aim was to establish some correlations between the amount of power consumed and the quality of the surfaces processed by cutting. In this sense, the forces were measured in the 3 directions specific to the cutting process (Fc; Ff; Fp) for 3 tools construction variants and power consumed. The results showed that, if a certain constructive variant of the cutting tool is used in the processing, a reduction of the power consumed to cutting can be obtained by approximately 30% and a reduction of the roughness of the processed surface by approximately 90–100%. Furthermore, following the statistical processing of the results, it was shown that it would be advisable to use, especially in roughing processes, the cutting tool variant that offers the greatest reduction in roughness and cutting power.