Environmentally Conscious Production Through Better Nozzle Design

This paper describes a the improvement of process where a lubrication system had been designed in an era when environmental regulations were more lax and did not require sophisticated methods of feeding lubricant to the work, in short when “tin can” lubrication methods were adequate.

The particular process is pilger rolling and before the improvements were made the process was considered an environmental hazard, by the department of labour, when in production. By redesigning the lubricant nozzles with information gleaned from numerical model studies of laminar jet flow from different shaped orifices it was possible to redesign the nozzles so that the environmental safety hazard was completely reduced. An added benefit was the reduction in the amount of lubricant needed, from 300 litres per minute to 30 litres per minute. This reduced the oil and power requirements. The product quality was also equaled or increased and downtime was decreased, thereby increasing productivity.