Cleaning fluids used in grinding, cutting, and machining with magnetic separation

IEC 224

James H.P. Watson and Paul A. Beharrell. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BQ, United Kingdom
High gradient magnetic separation(HGMS) was applied to the treatment of fluids used in the cutting and grinding of (a) aluminium based alloys and (b)iron based alloys. This method has a number of advantages, as follows: (1) The fluid can be cleaned down to sub-micron sizes without the addition of filter aids. (2) This process leaves a residue of metal particles without contamination and which is sufficiently clean to be sold for scrap. The fluid was treated in each case in a single pass at a flow velocity of 5 cm/s with an applied magnetic field of 5 Tesla, and the input and output fluids from the filtration trials were analysed. The mass per unit volume of solid particles was determined in three separate particle ranges: > 11 mm, 11 mm to 3 mm, and 3 mm to 0.45 mm. All the particles were removed except in the smallest size where a small fraction remained.