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A comparative study on the use of drilling and milling processes in hole making of GFRP composite

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Abstract

Drilling and milling processes are extensively used for producing riveted and bolted joints during the assembly operations of composite laminates with other components. Hole making in glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites is the most common mechanical process, which is used to join them to other metallic structures. Bolt joining effectiveness depends, critically, on the quality of the holes. The quality of machined holes in GFRP is strongly dependent on the appropriate choice of the cutting parameters. The main purpose of the present study is to assess the influence of drilling and milling machining parameters on hole making process of woven laminated GFRP material. A statistical approach is used to understand the effects of the control parameters on the response variables. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to isolate the effects of the parameters affecting the hole making in the two types of cutting processes. The results showed that milling process is more suitable than drilling process at high level of cutting speed and low level of feed rate, when the cutting quality (minimum surface roughness, minimum difference between upper and lower diameter) is of critical importance in the manufacturing industry, especially for precision assembly operation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank for the help and support provided by the staff of College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautic and Astronautic in performing experimental work there.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean University, Gazimagusa, Northern Cyprus, Via Mersin 10, Turkey

    HUSSEIN M ALI & ASIF IQBAL

  2. College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    LI LIANG

Authors
  1. HUSSEIN M ALI
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  2. ASIF IQBAL
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  3. LI LIANG
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to HUSSEIN M ALI.

Nomenclature

Nomenclature

  • t         Material thickness

  • Vc     Cutting speed

  • fz        Feed rate

  • D        Nominal hole diameter

  • Ra      Arithmetic surface roughness

  • DF     Delamination factor

  • UDF  Upper delamination factor

  • LDF   Lower delamination factor

  • DU    Upper surface diameter

  • DL     Lower surface diameter

  • Fz      Thrust force

  • Fw     Machining force

  • Pr      Productivity

  • z        Number of teeth in end mill.

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ALI, H.M., IQBAL, A. & LIANG, L. A comparative study on the use of drilling and milling processes in hole making of GFRP composite. Sadhana 38, 743–760 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12046-013-0186-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12046-013-0186-5

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