Damage free drilling of carbon fibre reinforced composites – a review

ABSTRACT

Carbon fibre reinforced plastic materials (CFRPs) have a wide range of industrial applications like automobile, aerospace, biomedical, defence, and sports industries because of extraordinary multidimensional properties. Mechanical drilling is a most widely used common secondary machining process for composite laminates. Drilling induced delamination at hole-entry and hole-exit of a drilled hole is frequently occurred due to anisotropic and non-homogeneous structure of a material mechanics. Delamination can be smothered by employing tool design optimisation, upgraded drilling strategies and improving drilling methods. In this paper, various drilling conditions towards damage free drilling of CFRPs are reviewed. The above drilling conditions are categorised under adhesive layer, cryogenic cooling, minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), pilot hole, reverse air suctioning, spring-damper mechanism, support plate mechanism, variable feed strategy, etc. These strategies are extensively reviewed with reference to drill bit geometry, drilling techniques and drilling methods to uncover the significance of drilling conditions and its importance on drilled quality. This common review on various drilling conditions for delamination-free drilling can be referenced as not only a widespread summary from literature survey available till the date but also help researchers to explore new possible ways to achieve delamination-free drilling for composite materials in upcoming years.

KEYWORDS:

• CFRP
• drilling conditions
• delamination
• suppression

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/data-sharing-policies/data-availability-statements/

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Nomencleture

°C	=	Temperature (in degree centigrade)
Ø	=	Diameter of drill bit (in mm)
T	=	Thickness of specimen (in mm)
N	=	Cutting speed (in rpm)
Vc	=	Cutting velocity (in m/min)
f	=	Feed (in mm/rev)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Punit Patel

Punit Patel presently working as Research Scholar-Chandubhai S Patel Institute of Technology, Charotar University of Science & Technology (CHARUSAT), Changa. His areas of interest include manufacturing and machining of composite materials.

Dr. Vijaykumar Chaudhary acquired his B.E. (Mechanical) degree and M.E. Mechanical (Machine Design) degree from BVM Engineering College, Sardar Patel University. He has acquired his Ph.D. in the area machining of Polymer Matrix Composites from Charotar University of Science & Technology (CHARUSAT), Changa. His areas of interest include machining of composite materials.