1 Introduction

The high-chromium high-carbon Cold Work tool steel D2 is considered. During the tempering procedure, we considered the steel as it is high in both chromium and carbon for the purpose of forming large volumes of secondary chromium carbides forming the precipitation of the carbides which further gave rise to high wear resistance steel.

In order to utilize for punch as well as dies or injection mould tools, D-2 steel is vacuum heat treated. In this heat treatment process, the steel is heated to an elevated temperature further to make it as perfect steel and is rapidly cooled by vacuum process. A special wheel has been adopted for surface grinding on the perfect steel. During the treatment process, parts of 2 mm thin can be manufactured and 0.004 mm leaving for finish grinding.

For high abrasive wear applications, D2 steel is manufactured and can exist the position of heat treated to RC 64 which has a short tempering temperature.

In the plastic moulding industry, it is used for barrel liners, die workings in the metal stamping industry as well as in several other applications which require high wear resistance.

Carbon nanotubes have a lot of structures, inconsistent in length, thickness, and number of layers. Even though they are formed from basically the same graphite sheet, their electrical characteristics are at variance depending on these variations, acting either as metals or as semiconductors (Table 1).

Table 1 Specifications of MWCNTs
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2 Design of Grinding Wheel and Work Piece

The grinding wheel selected for design is A60K5V10. The aluminium oxide grinding wheel is selected which is manufactured by universal carbodium. The properties of the grinding wheel and the work piece are tabulated below (Tables 2 and 3).

Table 2 Properties for grinding wheel
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Table 3 Properties for D2-tool steel work piece
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2.1 Dimensions Used for Modelling

  • Grinding Wheel:

    Diameter of the wheel::

    150 mm

    Thickness of the wheel::

    13 mm

    Internal Diameter of the wheel::

    31.75 mm

  • Work piece

    Length::

    80 mm

    Breadth::

    50 mm

    Thickness::

    5 mm

Modelling of the work piece and grinding wheel was done through Ansys software as per the above specifications. Here the grinding wheel is assumed to be made up of aluminium oxide. The design was made according to A60K5V10 (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Modelling of grinding wheel and work piece

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3 Results and Discussion

See Fig. 2, Tables 4 and 5.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Heat flux on the work piece with out using nanofluids

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Table 4 Results show the variation of heat flux without mixing of nanofluids
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Table 5 Results show the variation of heat flux mixing of nanofluids
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4 Taguchi Analysis

In Taguchi analysis, we can find out the optimum parameters used in grinding process. Taguchi involves with orthogonal arrays to systematize the parameters affecting the development and the levels at which they are supposed to be different. To optimize the performance characteristic, Taguchi involves design of experiments for analysis of variance on the collected data which is used to choose new parameter values (Table 6).

Table 6 Shows the parameters used for Taguchi Analysis in grinding process
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From the Fig. 3, Level 3 of A and Level 1 of B give the maximum effect of improving surface roughness. Naturally A3 and B1 are the best combination, i.e., a feed 0.4 mm/rev and depth of cut 0.01 mm furnish the smallest amount of surface roughness. From the factor outcome, graph shows that feed generous additional impact to improve the surface finish without using CNT coolant. Based on the experiment, the optimal level setting of parameters is A3B1 (Table 7).

Fig. 3
figure 3

Factor effect diagram without CNT coolant

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Table 7 Results for XRD Analysis
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Above results show that the asperities on the work piece for which nanofluids are not used are more when compared to the work piece for which nanofluids are used. By using nanofluids in grinding process, the height of the asperities is decreased. The atoms size reduces and the properties of the work piece are improved.

5 Conclusion

Surface roughness and the temperature evolved are more for the work piece for which normal fluids are used. The parameters which will affect the grinding process were studied. Micro-cracks evolved is more for the work piece for which nanofluids are not used and is identified by using S.E.M analysis. By X.R.D analysis, we can identify that the asperities are more for the work piece for which nanofluids are not used. Nanofluids form a thin layer on the work piece which will minimize the micro-cracks and improve the surface finish of the work piece.