Influence of CO2 Cooling on the Orthogonal Cutting of Elastomers

In recent years, there has been an interest in using machining operations as a means of producing prototypes for products using elastomers. However, the flexibility of these materials imposes challenges for the machining operations. This article presents an experimental study on the influence of CO2 cooling in the workpiece features and machining process for SBR 1502 elastomer (6.0 MPa of tensile strength and 71 Shore A hardness). The machining operation used was orthogonal cutting, obtained with a tube workpiece and grooving operation with feed rate in the radial direction. Testing was conducted with three experimental factors: temperature regime (room temperature and CO2 cooling), cutting speed and feed per revolution. Each factor had two levels. Four replications were conducted for each combination of machining conditions. The use of CO2 cooling produced a significara influence on the workpiece groove dimensions and surface roughness (improving Ra in at least 75%). The cutting force component (tangential) was increased, but the thrust force component (radial) was reduced, under CO2 cooling conditions. The specific cutting force was in a range between 54 and 106 MPa, with similar order of magnitude as previous studies.