Sustainable Machining Process - Myth or Reality

Preliminary note The industry is under increasing pressure of the financial crisis, global competition, stricter environmental legislation and supply-chain demand. To tackle these issues, a sustainable development trend has to be assured synergetically on all the levels/fields, including machining processes. This paper promotes sustainable production via an improvement of machining technologies through an alternative cryogenic machining process. Presented are comparative experimental results of cryogenic machining performances in accordance with conventional processes, through the analysis of: cutting forces, tool-wear, temperatures and costs. This work proves that the cryogenic machining technology has a high potential to cut costs and improve competitiveness by reducing resource consumption therefore, creating less waste, and has less of an environmental and social impact. The results of this work confirm that alternative sustainable cryogenic machining offers conditions for fulfilling the sustainability pillars: the economical, social and environmental one, over conventional machining processes