Investigation of the effect of CuO and AL2O3 nanolubricants on the surface roughness in the forging process of aluminum alloy

Abstract

Lubrication is an essential factor in the metal forming processes such as forging, since it leads to reducing friction at contact surfaces and increasing the surface quality of the forged parts. In order to create desirable tribological properties in the base lubricants, various metal oxide nanoparticles are mostly used as additives. In the present study, the effects of the nanolubricants made by copper oxide (CuO) and alumina (AL2O3) nanoparticles on the surface quality of the forging process have been investigated. The effects of the nanolubricants have been compared with the graphite as a conventional lubricant. Upsetting forging operation of a ring shape workpiece was used for evaluating the lubricants. Experiments were designed and analyzed using Taguchi method and analysis of variance. Results show that the nanolubricants cause a significant improvement on the surface roughness compared to conventional lubricants. Best condition is obtained when 0.8 wt% of CuO nanoparticles is added in paraffin lubricant. Compared with the case of base lubricants with no additives, roughness reduced by 41% and 33% for paraffin and oil10, respectively. Also, the surface roughness decreased by 496% and 235% compared with dry graphite powder and paraffin with 25% graphite, correspondingly.