INFLUENCE OF TOOL GEOMETRY AND PROCESS TEMPERATURE ON HOLE QUALITY WHEN DRILLING CARBON FIBER REINFORCED PLASTICS

Liviu Adrian Crisan, Grigore Marian Pop

Abstract

This paper presents the results of investigations concerning the influence of process temperatures, at the drilling of carbon fiber reinforced composites, on the quality of the drilled hole (roughness, tolerances, burr formation). With the increasing need of lightweight design, carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are a feasible alternative to engineering materials. They have excellent properties and are being extensively used in a variety of engineering applications (aerospace industry, automotive and the wind energy industry). Drilling is the most common machining process applied to CFRP, and it is difficult due to the extremely abrasive nature of the carbon fibers and their low thermal conductivity. However, the users of this kind of composites are facing difficulties to machining it, due to its properties. Due to the effects of lubricants on the fiber-reinforced composites, the machining of these materials is performed without coolant. On the other hand dry machining offers the risk of a thermal damage induced by high process temperatures.<BR />The current experimental analysis is focused towards determining process temperatures with different tools and drilling parameters. Infrared Thermography is used to investigate appropriate drilling temperatures based on drill geometry and the ideal drilling parameters were determined. In this paper, an attempt has been made to model the surface roughness through response surface method (RSM) and ANOVA when drilling GFRP composites.

Keywords

ANOVA, IR Thermography, carbon fiber reinforced plastics, CFRP, Drill Hole Quality, RSM

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DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC14 - Measurement of Geometrical Quantities

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