ABSTRACT
In this study, three vegetable cutting fluid namely: Tiger nut, water melon seed and neem seed were selected in drilling operation of mild steel using High Speed Steel (HSS) cutting tool at varying spindle speeds, feed rate and constant depth of cut. A commercially available convectional mineral oil was used as standard for comparative analysis. Flood method of cutting fluid application was adopted at the cutting zone for the cutting fluids, dry drilling environment was equally subjected to the same cutting parameters as the cutting fluids. The viability of these selected oil as cutting fluids were examined based on reduction in temperature generation, surface finish value and characteristics of chips produced. The results indicated that performance of selectedoil as cutting fluid in term of surface quality was best with water melon seed having 1.6μm surface roughness while conventional mineral oil was having 2.2μm at the same feed rate of 0.05 mm/rev, dry drilling condition was having 4.2μm as the highest value at this stated feed rate. The chips produced shows that all the cutting fluids were having segmented chip which is a good morphology at lower spindle speed but dry drilling environment was having 75% of its chip continuous, with substantial portion being burnt. Reduction in the generated temperature as the spindle speed increased was best achieved with water melon seed oil followed by mineral oil, tiger nut oil and neem seed oil respectively. The performance of selected plant cutting fluid are very similar because of their close physio-chemical properties.