An Investigation of Hole Machining Process on a Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Plastic Sheet by Abrasive Waterjet

Abstract

An experimental investigation of the hole machining performance for woven carbon-fiber reinforced PEEK (polyetheretherketone) sheets by an abrasive waterjet (AWJ) is presented. It is shown that AWJ machining can produce good quality holes if the cutting parameters are properly selected. Plausible trends of the hole quality with respect to the process parameters are discussed. Nozzle traverse speed and intended or programmed hole size are found to have a significant effect on the diameter error of the machined holes, hole roundness, and hole wall inclination angle, while water pressure and abrasive mass flow rate exhibit an insignificant effect. An increase in the traverse speed decreases the overall hole quality, while an increase in the programmed hole diameter decreases the hole diameter error and roundness error, but increases the hole wall inclination. There is not any clear trend of the hole wall surface roughness with respect to the process parameters. Moreover, high water pressures may result in hole defects, such as entrance surface chipping, delamination, internal cracking and fiber pull-out. It is found that the optimum process parameters are about 200 MPa water pressure, 2 mm/s nozzle traverse speed and 7.0 g/s abrasive mass flow rate. Recommendations are made for compensating for the hole size deviation and empirical models are fianlly developed for these hole characteristics.