Das Projekt "LEPOCUT - Entwicklung schadstoffarmer Schneideverfahren" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Robert Bosch GmbH durchgeführt. Manufacturing companies and factories are affected by environmental issues in every conceivable area of their business. This applies particularly to manufacturing. Increasing environmental awareness and pressure to reduce costs are now compelling companies to develop strategies to react on this. Greatest problems in this field arise nowadays as a result of the deployment of cooling lubricants. Total costs combined with the use of cooling lubricants can already reach up to 20 percent of the part costs in metal cutting processes. The increasing incidence of occupational diseases is putting further pressure on both company and national budgets. Manufacturing companies are therefore seriously looking for machining technologies which allow to avoid or at least to considerably reduce the amount of cooling lubricants. This strong need forms the starting point for a broadly based research project aiming to make less pollutant cutting technologies available to industry. The general objective will be to develop cutting technologies which will enable manufacturing companies to reduce cost combined with the use of cooling lubricants to about one third of its present value. The industrial objectives of the development activities in detail will be: - dry machining concepts for precision turning of steels and bronzes, - dry machining sequences of aluminium parts, - minimal lubrication techniques for machining, - environmental friendly cooling lubricants, - alternative gaseous coolant techniques for machining, - machine tools adapted to the requirements of dry machining, - coated cutting tools for dry machining application. Although abundant research is already done in this area, a thorough study of ongoing projects in Europe indicates a concentration on very specific, limited problems of metal cutting resulting in island solutions. In order to come to a solution of general validity regarding processes and materials to be machined, an integrative approach considering every component of a machining system will be set up. After completion of the RTD work therefore not only technologies, machine tools, cooling lubricants and cutting tools will be available, but also a methodology for the systematic improvement of environmental compatibility of metal machining processes. Within the proposed project, the knowledge and the experience of a cutting tool manufacturer (Kendu), coating specialists (Hauzer and Tekniker), machine tool manufacturer (Danobat) and a cooling lubricant supplier (Fuchs) will be combined to a 'machining system' and optimized aiming to drastically reduced use of cooling lubricants. Dry cutting machining technologies, minimized lubrication machining and machining with gaseous cooling lubricants will be developed (WZL) and optimized aiming to high part accuracy and high production rates.