Effect of Drilling Parameters Torque, Thrust Force and Delamination Factor on GFRP and CFRP Composites using Different Size of Drills

Abstract

The trend of the materials that are being used for various industrial applications has shown a drastic variation over the decades. Pure metals are replaced by alloys and these alloys in turn are being replaced by composites in most of the present day applications. Fiber reinforced polymer composites (FRPs) extensively used materials and a lot of research is going on for further improvement of properties of these materials. Drilling process is important in assembly of components in manufacturing. In case of FRPs drilling process is a great challenge when compared to that of conventional material because of de-bonding, metric cracking, and fiber pullout. The present work is a study on the effect of torque and thrust force on delamination of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) and Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers (GFRP) and by drilling process. Experiments are conducted at different feeds, drill diameters and speeds. Image processing approach is used to quantify the drill-induced delamination where helical flute HSS drills of diameters 4mm, 6mm and 8mm are used. Statistical analysis is made to optimize the drill parameters by ANOVA and Taguchi technique. It is observed that at 4mm drill diameter, torque and thrust force are minimum for both CFRP and GFRP. However, the delamination factor is minimum at drill diameter of 6mm in case of GFRP and at 8mm for CFRP.