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ABSTRACT

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composite materials has


unique mechanical and functional properties due to the combination of its
constituent materials that possesses desirable properties. The constituents are
typically available in the form of carbon fiber reinforcement embedded in a
plastic matrix. The high strengthto-weight ratio, wear resistance and
corrosion resistance of CFRP materials make it suitable for various vital
applications such as aerospace, automobiles, sporting goods, biomedical, post
strengthening of beams, etc. In order to suit the different structures of such
applications, machining of CFRP materials are carried out and drilling is one
such inevitable operation to join different structures. Drilling of CFRP
composite materials induces various damages like fiber pull-out, fiber
bending, delamination, matrix cracking, spalling and fuzzing. Delamination is
one of the major damage encountered in drilling of composite materials. In
order to avoid delamination, many research works have been carried out for
proper selection of drilling parameters namely, process parameters and tool
parameters. The process parameters include spindle speed and feed rate. The
tool parameters include tool geometry and tool materials.
The investigation on tool materials in drilling of CFRP composites is
not reported much. In addition to delamination, the quality of drilled holes
can be evaluated in terms of performance factors such as thrust force involved
in drilling, torque, surface roughness and eccentricity. There is no systematic
and comprehensive studies carried out in drilling of CFRP composites. The

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present research work is focused on the experimental studies in drilling of


CFRP composite materials using three different tool materials, namely high
speed steel (HSS), carbide and Poly Crystalline Diamond (PCD) coated drill
tools and with six different responses. Modeling and optimization of process
parameters is carried out and reported in this study.
CFRP composite plates are fabricated using carbon fibers whose
strands measure 4.61 microns. The epoxy resin, ARALDITE LY 556 is mixed
with HARDENER XY 54 and hand lay-up technique is used to fabricate the
CFRP composite plates. The drill tool used is solid type twist drill with 6 mm
diameter and is made up of HSS, carbide and PCD coated materials each at
three different point angles - 100, 118 and 135. The experiments are
planned using full factorial design of Taguchis L27 orthogonal array leading
to 27 experiments. Three levels of spindle speed, feed rate and point angle are
chosen for conducting experiments. The three levels of spindle speed chosen
are 1000 rpm, 2000 rpm and 3000 rpm and three levels of feed rate chosen are
100 mm/min, 300 mm/min and 500 mm/min. In the present research work, six
different responses are studied, namely thrust force, torque, delamination at
the entry and exit of the drill tool, eccentricity and surface roughness on the
drilled holes in CFRP composite plates. PCD coated drills produce better
quality of holes compared to HSS and carbide drills.
The empirical equations are developed for each response using
regression modeling technique for determining the non linear relationship
between the chosen responses and the drilling parameters. The R- Sq values
are calculated for the regression models and it is almost equal to unity

indicating that the model chosen is well in agreement with the experimental
results. Another accurate modeling approach, namely, adaptive neuro fuzzy
inference system (ANFIS) is applied for various other machining operations
in composite materials and hence applied for drilling in the present study.
ANFIS is based on a first-order Sugeno fuzzy inference model. A
more accurate model relating the drilling parameters and each response can be
obtained using ANFIS. The ANFIS models are obtained for all the six
responses chosen in the present study. To measure the goodness of fit of the
ANFIS model, R-Sq value, average training error in %, root mean square
error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) values are chosen as
performance factors. The evaluation of such performance factors are carried
out for four different membership functions and are repeated for five different
numbers of iterations. The best membership function and the number of
iterations are found for all the responses using the minimum values of average
error, RMSE and MAE values and an accurate ANFIS model is thus obtained.
On comparison, it is found that the responses predicted using ANFIS models
are close to the experimental values than that of regression models.
Grey relational analysis is used to optimize the drilling parameters
with a small set of database. The relational analysis is further explored using
grey fuzzy approach and the response tables and response graphs are plotted
that shows the most influential parameters and optimal drilling conditions.
Grey fuzzy analysis indicate that the optimal drilling conditions are high
speed of 3000 rpm, low point angle of 100 and low feed rate of 100 mm/min
for the experiments conducted using all the three drill tool materials. The

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response values are predicted for the optimal drilling conditions and
compared with that of corresponding experimental values and the initial
values.
The drilled holes are observed and certain drilling induced damages
are identified such as, delamination at the entry and exit planes, fiber pull-out,
spalling and fuzzing. Of all these damages, delamination is found to be the
major one and hence the mechanism of drilling is explored to understand the
cause for delamination. Thrust force is found to increase as the drill advances
into the work piece and reaches maximum as the drill tool touches the last
layer of the CFRP composite plate. Thrust force decreases as the drill tool
comes out of the CFRP composite plate after producing a hole and drops
down to zero as reaming takes place. As thrust force increases, delamination
also increases. Torque also shows similar trend except that magnitude of
variation is less as compared to that of thrust force. A proper choice of input
drilling parameters is required to decrease the thrust force and torque, so as to
minimize the delamination. The ANOVA tables are developed to find the
most influential parameter and the percentage of contributions. It is found
from the ANOVA tables calculated for all the six responses that feed rate is
the most influential factor followed by point angle. The parametric influence
on each response is studied and the interaction plots are analyzed.

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