Effect of Air Cooling on Tool Wear in Drilling CFRP

Abstract

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is commonly used in many industries such as sports equipment, aerospace and automotive industries because of its particular properties of low weight and high strength. When penetrating the plastic with a large amount of fiber, problems such as fiber pull-out, delamination and matrix smearing exist. Delamination is a major problem in drilling the components/parts and assembling composite materials. Cutting CFRP without cooling enhances cutting temperature, leading to an increase in delamination. This paper investigates the effect of the difference between with and without air cooling on the drilling of bidirectional CFRP laminates using carbide tools. The cutting parameters studied were cutting speed and feed rate, while tool wear was the response of this study.