Testing of environmentally friendly lubricants for sheet metal forming

The paper summarizes more than 10 years work by the authors through participation in several national framework programmes together with other Danish research institutes and industries and in an ongoing EU framework programme together with research institutes and industries from Germany, United Kingdom, Finland, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Denmark.

Partners in the programmes represent lubricant developers, testing experts and industrial end users as well as numerical modelling experts simulating fundamental lubrication mechanisms and computing basic process parameters. In these programmes the authors have especially been involved in the development of a system of test methods for sheet metal forming and in testing of friction and limits of lubrication of new, environmentally friendly lubricants.

An overview of the developed tests is presented together with selected results.