Importance Of Clean Coolant

1 May, 2021

In the ever demanding and cost cutting automotive industry – where even the smallest percent of margin saving can lead to great profits – coolant purity could act as a huge denomination in this formula.

Coolants are an instrumental part of machining. They help extend tool life and provide an improved surface finish of the parts being machined. 

High precision machining applications such as Honing, Grinding, Shaving or even Hobbing work on components which require the greatest forms of accuracy. The machine manufacturers provide customers with the most reputable coolant which promises longer lasting tools and even component accuracy for a long period of time before change. The tools of most of these machining centers tend to be high consumable costs and are worn out much faster than often when the coolant of the machine is contaminated. Hence, manufacturers are often bound to replace their coolant in order to get longer life out of their tool. With even the smallest of scratch marks leading to high rejection costs, manufacturers need to understand that coolant purity is a key aspect of savings and improvement within their system.

With the BS6 engine now coming into play, Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers are continuously under strict checks on their components and regular audits from the OEMs ensures manufacturers to be stringent on their operators. 

An aspect, manufacturers overlook is “clean coolant”, which they feel as they already have existing filtration systems in play, would not be an issue. Coolant purity when maintained to the correct millipore values ensures consistency on a number of parameters such as Ra Values, scratch marks, dressing frequency, burning time, etc. 

What manufacturers do not realize is that it is not the heavy contamination being prevalent in their coolant which is causing the damage (as the heavy particles bounce of, and are not able to enter the fine micron space during the machining) it is the fine dust particles, which enter the machining zone and eventually cause scratch marks to the component and also reduce the life of their tool.

Filtration of their coolant for fine particles, down to under 1 micron is key in giving you an extended life on the coolant and at the same time giving you longer lasting tools and improved surface finish. 

Here is a real time example from one of our customers in India –

Our customer in Manesar (Gurgaon) was facing an issue of heavy consumption of grinding wheel life as well as accuracy on the component. This issue was being created due to the fine dust which was by passing the paper band filter and magnetic roller. The customer made it a project to measure and monitor the consumption of their wheel life post and pre installation of the magnetic filter. We simply installed a magnetic filter online post the paper band which in turn collected all the fine dust under 1 micron. This in turn increased the life of the grinding wheel by more than 2 times as well as improved the component accuracy. 

You can see below a short screenshot of the same:

With the ever changing manufacturing environment in India and new technological advancement, magnetic filtration is a fantastic “non consumable” filtration technology which is able to benefit all the automotive component manufacturers. 

If you would like more information on the same, please feel free to reach out to us at – info@kleenoilindia.com