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6214729 
Book/Book Chapter 
Minimum Quantity Lubrication for Sustainable Machining 
Furness, R; Shih, A; Stephenson, D; Tai, B 
2017 
Elsevier 
Oxford 
Encyclopedia of Sustainable Technologies 
477-485 
Minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) machining refers to using a small amount of metal working fluid to achieve both lubrication and cooling between the cutting tool and work material, in contrast to traditional flood and high-pressure water-based coolants. Water-based coolants are recirculating emulsions or solutions of water and oil at flow rates of several L/min and pressures up to 100bar, while MQL consumes the lubricant (typically straight oil) at 5–300mL/H at air pressures between 4 and 10bar. The fluid consumption of MQL is lower by three to four orders of magnitude than in wet machining, and the MQL oil is also consumed in the process, so no coolant pump, cooling, or filtering is required. This significantly reduces energy consumption and costs associated with coolant disposal, reclamation, filtration, and chilling. A report from German Social Accident Insurance, which involved several major European companies, indicated that about 16% of total manufacturing expenses are related to cutting fluid. Ford Motor Company, a large MQL user and a leader in the implementation of MQL in high volume production, has also reported that the flood cooling costs are in the range of 10%–17% of the total powertrain manufacturing costs. As a result, MQL has seen increasing use in automotive powertrain machining and in the machining of airframe and other large structural components. 
Computational fluid dynamics; Cutting fluids; Electric discharge machining; Minimum quantity lubrication; Powertrain manufacturing cost; Thermal management 
Abraham, Martin A.