ANALYSIS OF DRILLED HOLE QUALITY AND CIRCULARITY ERROR WHILE DRILLING JUTE-FLAX HYBRID COMPOSITES

Abstract

This work is conducted typically to understand and analyse the quality of the drilled hole and the circularity errors associated with it, while the drilling is performed on the hybrid natural fibre reinforced epoxy composites prepared by simple hand layup technique. Materials used for the composite preparation includes jute-flax fibres along with the epoxy base. Experiments were conducted by considering the design of experiments using taguchi technique and the holes were drilled accordingly with varying parametric conditions and different drill sizes. The holes were analysed under a microscope and the quality of holes were studied which showed the comparison of delamination at the entry as well as the exit for different drilling conditions. The circularity error measurement for the drilled holes is conducted using coordinate measuring machine (CMM) which follows the minimum zone evaluation method. The observations are made on to which combination of drill parameters yield lesser circularity error and the effect of the combination of parameters are studied, followed by the optimization of process parameters done by RSM.