Optimal cutting conditions towards sustainable machining when slot milling aluminium alloy

Energy used in manufacturing has to be reduced in order to cut down carbon emission derived from energy generation. Optimising cutting parameters and selecting a proper cutting environment reduces energy consumption contributing to a sustainable manufacturing. The research reported herein is focused mainly on searching for an optimum combination of cutting parameters and cutting environment to minimise energy consumption when milling aluminium alloys. The selection of this workpiece material was based on its wide applications in aerospace industry basically due to its high corrosion resistance and high strength-to-weight ratio, characteristics. The experiments were conducted on a Siemens 840D Bridgeport Vertical Machining centre 610XP2. The results show that the cryogenic cutting environment is the optimal environment in terms of power consumption and surface roughness value to conduct the milling of a 6082-T6 aluminium alloy under the selected cutting parameters.