Cryogenic Cooling Assisted Machining of Elastomers – A Critical Review

Elastomeric materials are broadly used for damping augmentation in variety of applications due to their simple design, low weight density and high reliability and low tensile strength. Generally, the components of elastomers are manufactured in large quantity through injection moulding process. However, when required in small numbers for the specific applications such as aerospace, ship building, biomedical engineering etc and also 000when required in complex shapes and higher accuracy manufacturing elastomeric components through injection moulding process turns out to be an expensive process due to higher initial cost. Under those circumstances machining appears to be a promising process due to its versatility and accuracy. On the other hand machining Elastomers in normal circumstances is not so easy due to high elastic deformation that occurs in the entire workpiece during machining which results in poor product quality. Cryo-cooling assisted machining provide solution to this problem which is nothing but an extended quenching process in the conventional heat treatment cycle in which high elastic property disappears temporarily. The present paper aims at brief literature survey on recent developments in cryogenic machining of elastomers.