Deposition of cooling lubricant emissions at machine tools; sub-project IKE: optimisation of the collecting of materials at machine tools by flow simulation

Status:

completed 03/2006

Aims:

The mechanical processing of metals and glasses requires - except some of them - cooling lubricants. Following appraisals, 4.5 millions of employees in Germany predominantly working in 200 000 small and middle companies are exposed to cooling lubricants. Cooling lubricants contain all sorts of materials; the composition is changing during their use and other materials are produced. Additional materials are inserting from outside. They are principally applied in machine tools; respiratory diseases can appear caused by emissions. Under certain conditions cancer-producing and toxical hazardous substances can be released.

Activities/Methods:

3D flow simulation taking into consideration routing of air flow, rotation (workpiece resp. tool), thermal, inlet of cooling lubricant. Validation by experimental results out of WZL subproject.

Results:

Three dimensional simulation of flow and material dispersion processes in enclosures of machine tools opens up perspectives of assessment not by far achievable experimentally. Visualisations of these processes in terms of velocity and directions, temperature and pressure allow for an in-depth understanding of the processes and their consequences in view of a reduction of emitted metal-working fluid aerosols. This is demonstrated by two examples from the machine tool laboratory (Werkzeugmaschinenlabor, WZL) at the University of Aachen (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule, RWTH).

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