A study on the drilling of composite and titanium stacks

M. Ramulu
*
, T. Branson, D. Kim
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Box 352600, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Abstract
An experimental study on drilling of graphite/bismaleimide (Gr/Bi) titanium (Ti) stacks was conducted by using dierent cutter
materials with a standard geometry to understand and characterize the process. The tool materials used were high-speed steel (HSS),
high-speed cobalt (HSS-Co), and carbide. It was observed that at the interface of Gr/BiTi, high temperatures induced material
damage near and around the hole region. Dissimilar mechanical and thermal properties aected the tool life and allowed for increased
matrix degradation and burr formation in Ti, regardless of the cutting tool material. As a result, fewer holes were produced when high
spindle speeds and slowfeeds were used. It was also found that carbide drills outperformed all other tools in terms of tool life, minimal
surface damage, and heat induced damage on both workpiece materials. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Titanium composite stacks; Drilling; Tool wear; Heat-induced damage; Surface nish; Burrs
1. Introduction
Today, with the new advances in material technology,
the aerospace industry as well as other types of industries
are making a major eort to incorporate an increasing
amount of composite materials into various structures
and components. Often, the composites are used in
conjunction with another material to form a hybrid
structure, which results in greater strength to weight ra-
tios than can be obtained with conventional materials.
Recent trends in the aerospace industry have been to
increase the use of composites and Ti alloys because of
the outstanding mechanical properties that can be pro-
vided at critical load carrying locations in many military
and commercial aircraft. To improve the manufacturing
process, fastener holes are drilled through composite-
metal stacks instead of drilling each composite and me-
tallic material separately. Sheets or plates of Gr/Bi and Ti
alloys have been stacked together and drilled to minimize
the positional errors and to obtain tight tolerances dur-
ing the manufacturing and assembly processes.
However, drilling of dissimilar material like graphite
composite and metal stack is a challenging task to
manufacturing engineers because of dierent machining
properties. Therefore, there is an intensive research
conducted both on machining of composites as well as
metallic materials separately [16]. A large amount of
research has been done on metals with respect to the
drilling force model, tool wear, and drill temperature [3
6]. Several studies have dealt mainly with the drilling of
composites and majority of these studies was aimed at
the mechanics associated with hole-quality such as del-
amination [1,710]. Based on reported literature and
also our extensive experimental work, low feeds and
high speeds are desirable for drilling of carbon com-
posites. In contrast, the optimum drilling process for Ti
requires drilling at low speed and positive feed [5,6].
Very few experimental studies have been done on drill-
ing composite-metal stacks for optimizing the process
parameters [1114]. This paper aims to present the ma-
chining issues involved in drilling Gr/BiTi alloy stacked
materials, and to characterize the surface nish and
damage induced in drilling holes in both composite and
Ti alloy materials.
2. Experimental procedures
2.1. Materials
The Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (FRP) material used in
this study was a multidirectional Gr/Bi composite con-
sisting of IM-6 graphite bers and a 3501-6 thermoset
matrix with a ply orientation of [45/90/)45/0/)45/0/45/0/
)45/90/)45/0/45/0/45/90/)45/90/90
s
which was acquired
from The Boeing Company. The Gr/Bi thickness was
Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777
www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-206-543-5349; fax: +1-206-685-
8047.
E-mail address: ramulum@u.washington.edu (M. Ramulu).
0263-8223/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 3 - 8 2 2 3 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 1 - X
7.62 mm with a ply thickness of 0.2 mm. Ti 6Al4V alloy
sheets with 3.1 mmthickness were used in the experiment.
2.2. Experimental procedure
Prior to beginning the drilling experiments, it was
necessary to determine the stacking sequence of the Gr/
Bi and Ti materials. Based on the trial experiments, it
was decided that the most ecient stacking sequence
would be to rest the Gr/Bi on top of the Ti alloy. This
approach in stacking sequence would result in the least
amount of exit delamination. Drilling experiments were
performed with a coolant on a commercial vertical mill,
which was retrotted with a CNC control and drive
unit. The spindle motor provided ve speeds 325, 660,
1115, 1750, and 2750 rpm. Three types of drill materials
were selected for this investigation based on their
availability and widespread use in industry: high-speed
steel (HSS), high-speed cobalt (HSS-Co) and carbide.
The chosen drill types and materials encompass a range
of hardness levels and geometry.
Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of the experi-
mental setup and the data acquisition system. The
summary of experimental conditions is listed in Table 1.
In the system, a dynamometer was used to measure drill
thrust and torque. The aluminum cylinder inside the
dynamometer was tted with two sets of strain gages,
which were aligned to be independently sensitive to
thrust force and torque applied to the dynamometer.
Stacked Gr/Bi and Ti workpieces were clamped to a
xture, which was clamped to the faceplate of the dy-
namometer, prior to drilling. Voltage signals traveled
through a commercial analog to digital I/O board, lo-
cated inside a personal computer, where the signal was
converted to the digital domain. A customized software
program was used to control the sampling frequency
during the experiments and to view the output signals.
Voltage data was recorded from the data acquisition
system and post processed for further analysis.
The experiments were designed to investigate the ef-
fects of drill materials, drilling process parameters, feed,
and speed on the cutting forces, tool wear and the hole
quality. Tool wear was measured by using optical mi-
croscope at the ank face on all the drills in order to
determine the inuence of spindle speed and feed when
drilling Gr/BiTi stacks. Hole quality in Ti alloys and
composite material were evaluated in terms of material
integrity, surface nish and the burrs. Microscopy was
utilized to observe the drilled hole quality included both
optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The
Joel JSM-T300A SEM was used to qualitatively access
the surface of the sectional hole walls, as well as to study
the damage evolution in each ply orientation. Surface
formation and topography were characterized in terms
of surface describing parameters from the surface prole
measurements. The surface roughness across depth of
the hole walls were measured on a Surfanalyzer System
4000. Surface roughness measurements were performed
on both Gr/Bi and Ti alloy materials. Prolometer op-
eration parameters consisted of a 0.80 mm cut-o length
and 0.25 mm/s drive speed. The surface roughness pa-
rameters such as, average surface roughness R
a
, aver-
age root mean square R
q
, average peak-to-peak height
R
y
, and average roughness value of ten-point height
R
z
, were measured and recorded by the Surfanalyzer.
Burr height measurements were recorded using an
electronic digital height gage.
3. Results and discussions
Typical holes drilled using HSS-Co tool in Gr/BiTi
stacks at a feed 0.13 mm/rev and 660 rpm speed are
shown in Fig. 2. Note that the burr formation and
Am plif ier s
Personal
com puterwith
data ac quisiti on
boards
O scillos cope
Drill
Gr/Bi
Ti
5A1
Diffe rential
5D1
Wa vef
Digiti
CNC m illi ng machine
Dynamome ter
Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup and data acquisition system.
68 M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777
growth is increased with the number of holes increased.
The eects of drilling conditions, and tool materials on
cutting forces, tool wear, workpiece damage, and sur-
face roughness will be presented and discussed in the
following sections.
3.1. Drilling forces
Typical thrust force and torque magnitudes varied
with depth as a standard HSS drill penetrated the Gr/
BiTi stacks and are shown in Fig. 3. Notice that there
were two major regions in the thrust and torque pro-
les, which indicate where the thrust and torque levels
occur for each material when drilling through the Gr/
BiTi stacks. As expected the thrust force and torque
were maximum as the drill penetrated the Ti material.
However, the cutting action can be further divided into
seven minor regions. Region 1 denes the period when
the chisel edge is only introduced into the Gr/Bi. In
region 2, the cutting lips engage in machining of Gr/Bi,
and region 3 denes the period of full engagement of
the drill through Gr/Bi. A constant thrust force oc-
curred once the cutting edges of the drill were engaged
in the Gr/Bi, prior to entering the Ti alloy. Regions
4 and 5 are dened as the chisel edge cutting and the
cutting lips engagement at the interface, respectively.
Once the drill entered the Ti alloy, the thrust force
increased up to a maximum value. Then, the drill
pierced through the only Ti alloy in region 6. The
maximum torque in the Ti alloy occurred just before
the chisel edge of the drill exited the Ti alloy. In region
7, the drill emerges out of the Ti alloy. After the drill
pierced through the Ti alloy, the thrust force and tor-
que decreased back to zero. Young et al. [9] noted that
a positive thrust was sometimes apparent after the drill
exited the material and retracted upward, resulting
from burrs or chips stuck inside the hole. This created
a resistance between the drill and the workpiece.
Fig. 3. Typical cutting forces versus depth for standard HSS drill.
Drilling conditions: speed 660 rpm and 0.2 mm/rev feed; (a) thrust, and
(b) torque (drill is not in scale).
Fig. 2. Top, bottom, and side view of Gr/BiTi stack drilled by a HSS-
Co drill at 0.13 mm/rev and 660 rpm.
Table 1
Summary of experimental conditions
Drilling compositetitanium stacks
Machine tool/equipment Bridgeport vertical mill with CNC control
Workpiece material IM-6 graphite bismaleimide composite (Gr/Bi) and Ti 6Al4V alloy
Tools HSS, standard drill with oxide treatment
HSS-Co, Split-point drill with oxide treatment
Carbide, Standard C2 grade solid carbide drill
Drilling conditions Speed (rpm) 325, 660, 1115, 1750, and 2750
Feed (mm/rev) 0.03, 0.08, 0.13, 0.12, and 0.25
M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777 69
Drilling forces, thrust and torque, were inuenced by
drilling parameters, speed and feed. Average thrust
magnitudes at each region were measured in both Gr/Bi
and Ti alloy materials for the rst hole, with each HSS
and carbide drill, and plotted against drilling parameters
under constant speed and constant feed, as shown in
Figs. 4(a)(d). Average cutting forces of HSS-Co drills
show a similar trend with those of HSS drills. As shown
(a) (b)
(d) (c)
Fig. 4. Thrust forces in dierent regions at (a) constant speed (660 rpm) and (b) constant feed (0.0732 mm/rev) for standard HSS drills; (c) constant
speed (660 rpm) and (d) constant feed (0.0732 mm/rev) for standard carbide drills.
Fig. 5. Micrographs showing wear of (a) carbide, (b) HSS, and (c) HSS-Co drills after 10, 1, and 1 holes, respectively, at 0.08 mm/rev feed and 1750
rpm speed.
70 M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777
in Fig. 4, the thrust forces are linearly related with feed
when HSS and carbide drills were used. However, the
relations between thrust forces produced by HSS and
carbide tools and speed are not clear. Fig. 4(d) shows
spindle speed had little eect on thrust forces when using
carbide drills. Thrust magnitudes did not change in all
regions except region 7, as shown in Fig. 4(b). Drill thrust
in region 7 increased nonlinearly at high speeds in the Ti
alloy when both HSS were used. The sudden increase in
thrust force can be attributed to the tool wearing out
0
4
8
12
16
20
0.03 0.08 0.13 0.20 0.25
Feed (mm/rev)
P
r
o
d
u
c
e
d

h
o
I
e

n
o
.
HSS
HSS-Co
0
4
8
12
16
20
325 660 1115 1750 2720
Speed (rpm)
P
r
o
d
u
c
e
d

h
o
I
e

n
o
.
HSS
HSS-Co
Speed: 660 rpm Feed: 0.08 mm/rev
Fig. 6. The eect of feed and speed on the hole production for HSS and HSS-Co drills: (a) constant speed; (b) constant feed.
F
l
a
n
k

w
e
a
r

(
m
m
)
(a)
(b) (c)
Fig. 7. (a) Drill ank wear versus hole number with dierent tool materials. The eect of (b) feed and (c) speed on the carbide drill ank wear at the
20th hole.
M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777 71
quickly because of the heat generated at higher speeds. In
addition, other reasons would include well-deformable
Ti, heated on high speed cutting, and large burr forma-
tion. However, the torque was linearly varied with feed
but variation with speed was not signicant.
3.2. Hole production and tool wear
Fig. 5 shows the micrographs depicting the wear in
all the drills used in this investigation. HSS drills
showed the most wear after the fewest drilled holes
followed by HSS-Co drills. Tool wear on the HSS and
HSS-Co drills occurred rapidly when drilling the Gr/
BiTi stacks. Flank and crater wear was observed on
HSS and HSS-Co drills. Minor ank wear was begin-
ning to form on the carbide drills. The least amount of
wear occurred at the tip of the point angle for all the
drills tested. Some of the more extreme tool wear was
observed on the helical cutting edges of the HSS and
HSS-Co drills as well.
3.2.1. HSS and HSS-Co drills
The great number of holes to failure were drilled for
carbide drills. The time to failure of tool was determined
either by the CNC machine stopping because a maxi-
mum thrust limit was reached, 3700 N, or visually by
noticing worn cutting edges and smoke. The number of
drilled holes is presented in Fig. 6. For the HSS and
HSS-Co drills, the combination of slow speed and slow
feed was detrimental to tool life because of the long tool
engagement periods. A slow feed resulted in a longer
tool engagement time, leading to increased tool tem-
peratures. Increasing the spindle speed created more
heat generation due to friction in the cutting zone, de-
creasing the tool life. Ti alloys heat up rapidly during
drilling and do not dissipate the heat quickly because of
the low thermal conductivity. Heat generation was the
primary concern when drilling Gr/BiTi stacks because
high temperatures in the drilling region were detrimental
to tool life and allowed for increased matrix degrada-
tion. As a result, fewer holes were produced when high
Fig. 8. (a) Gr/Bi damage region at the Gr/BiTi interface at 0.08 mm/rev and 1750 rpm (Note: The Gr/Bi damage radial distance, t, is specied as
t / D=2.) (b) The top view of Gr/Bi damage region produced by HSS-Co drill at 0.08 mm/rev, 2720 rpm (by microscope), and (c) the side view
(by SEM).
72 M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777
spindle speeds and slow feeds were used for HSS and
HSS-Co drilling.
Tool wear occurred at the outer cutting edges rst
because the cutting tool velocity is greatest at the outer
diameter of the drill bit. Since the cutting speed is
greatest around the outer diameter of the drill, higher
speeds result in higher friction between the tool and
materials, resulting in higher heat generation and
leading to increased tool wear. Maximum thrust force
was always associated with high ank wear of the drills.
Fig. 9. Damage radial distance at the Gr/Bi interface; with various (a) feed and (b) speed.
Fig. 10. Entrance/exit burr height at the rst hole of Ti alloys with various feed and speed: (a) constant speed (660 rpm); (b) constant feed (0.08 mm/
rev); (c) constant speed (660 rpm); (d) constant feed (0.08 mm/rev).
M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777 73
3.2.2. Carbide
Unlike HSS and HSS-Co drills, carbide drills had not
reached their end of life even after over 30 holes were
made. As shown in Fig. 7(a), carbide drills showed the
least amount of tool wear, because carbide has a greater
hot hardness. The ank wear values at the 20th hole on
the carbide drills are shown in Figs. 7(b) and (c). Drills are
worn out fast over 0.2 mm/rev and 1750 rpm. It is obvious
that the carbide drill ank wear increases exponentially
with increase in the feed and spindle speed. The thrust
forces produced by a carbide drill did not increase dras-
tically with increase in number of holes, as HSS and HSS-
Co did. This is due to the greater hot hardness of carbide.
Consequently, high speeds and high feeds have negative
eect on the tool life of carbide drills, because heat gen-
eration is not a major factor on the carbide tool wear.
3.3. Workpiece damage
HSS and HSS-Co drills produced workpiece damage
including ber exposure on the Gr/BiTi interfaces and
Ti burrs. By placing the Gr/Bi on top of the Ti alloy, the
exit plies of the composite were supported. Thus, as the
drill exited the composite there is very little delamina-
tion of bottom plies.
3.3.1. Damage at the interface
Two types of material damage were present at the exit
surface of the Gr/Bi. The rst damage was the discol-
oration ring located around the hole and the second can
be referred as a damage ring, which was induced by
both heat and metal chips. The discoloration zone may
be due to heat generated during drilling, however, there
was no ber breaking and bers were not exposed at
the discoloration ring. Fig. 8 shows micrographs
showing damage at the interface surface of Gr/Bi
specimens. The Gr/Bi damage was noticed when the
HSS and HSS-Co drills were used, but minimal damage
took place when carbide drills were used, at least for the
amount of holes produced using carbide drills. During
drilling, damage rings, located in exit plies of the
composite at the Gr/Bi and Ti alloy interface, were
Fig. 11. Burr height with HSS tool and thrust force versus percentage ratio of burr height to drill diameter in Ti for HSS drilling: (a) constant speed
(660 rpm); (b) constant feed (0.08 mm/rev) (entrance/exit burr height at the rst hole of Ti alloys with various feed and speed; (c) thrust force versus %
ratio of burr height to drill diameter in Ti for HSS drilling.
74 M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777
formed. The damage radial distance was measured,
where is the diameter of the damage obtained by
subjective averaging and, D is the hole diameter (Fig.
8(a)). The radial distance of both the discoloration rings
and damage rings increased as the number of holes
drilled increased when both HSS and HSS-Co drills
were used. In Fig. 8(b), the damage revealed that the
bers were exposed as a result of the matrix overheat-
ing, causing a defect in the material. Also, as shown in
Fig. 8(c), delamination induced by both heat and the
metal chips can be observed at the exit ply. Therefore,
the damage was minimal when the carbide drills were
used because carbide had a higher hot hardness com-
pared to HSS and HSS-Co drills, thus the cutting edges
remained sharper, shearing away material more e-
ciently and generating less heat. Figs. 9(a) and (b) show
that the damage radial distance decreases as the feed
increases when HSS drills are used. In case of HSS-Co
drills, the trend with various feeds seems to be unclear,
but the damage radial distance is large at slow feed,
under 400 rpm, and decreases at higher feed. This
damage was caused by localized heat generation in the
Ti alloy around the cutting zone. The lower feeds re-
sulted in longer tool engagement times between the tool
and the workpeice. Longer machining times led to more
heat generation in the Ti alloy. The radial distance in-
creased with increasing speed for both HSS and HSS-
Co drills. Damage by carbide tools was negligibly small,
thus it was not measured.
3.3.2. Ti burr height
Ti alloy burrs were found to depend upon spindle
speed and feed. Fig. 10 shows the entry and exit burr
heights versus speed and feed under constant speed and
feed conditions in Ti alloy. Under constant speed con-
ditions, entrance and exit burr height decreased as the
feed increased, and burr height increased with increasing
hole number using HSS and HSS-Co drills. For example,
the exit burr height of 1st HSS drilled hole at 0.2 mm/rev
and 660 rpm was 0.9 mm, and it increased to 2.84 mm at
the 12th hole. Under constant feed conditions, entrance
and exit burr heights increased as spindle speed in-
creased, and burr height increased with increasing hole
number using HSS, HSS-Co, and carbide drills. Gener-
ally, carbide drills produced the smallest entrance and
exit burr heights. However, when carbide drills were
tested under constant speed conditions, the entrance
burr increased with increasing feed and increasing hole
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Fig. 12. The eect of feed and speed on the surface roughness values, Ra, for Gr/Bi and Ti: (a) Gr/Bi with various feed, constant speed, 660 rpm; (b)
Gr/Bi with various speed, constant feed, 0.08 mm/rev; (c) Ti with various feed, constant speed, 660 rpm; (d) Ti with various speed, constant feed, 0.08
mm/rev.
M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777 75
number. Exit burr height remained constant through-
out the number of holes drilled. This is due to high
thrust force at high feeds as shown in Fig. 4(c). Flank
wear of carbide tools also increases with increasing
feed, as shown in Fig. 7(a). Under constant feed con-
ditions, carbide drills produced entrance burrs that
remained nearly constant as the spindle speed and hole
number increased while the exit burr height slightly
increased.
The formation of the burr was aected by several
factors: thrust force and frictional heat generated when
drilling at high speed; long tool engagement time; slow
feeds. Fig. 11 shows the burr height generated by HSS-
Co drill (Figs. 11(a) and (b)) and the eects of thrust
force and feed rate on the exit burr heights (Fig. 11(c)).
At the same thrust force, lower feed rate produces
higher burr height. Burr height is proportional to thrust
force at the constant feed rate. When the drill was close
to exiting the material, the Ti alloy had a large amount
of heat in the cutting zone. As the drill pierced through
the bottom surface of the Ti alloy material, the last thin
layer of Ti alloy did not get sheared properly because the
cutting edges of the drill became worn out. The bottom
surface layer of the Ti alloy became quite hot, and the
ductility increased, allowing the material to ow easier.
When the worn drill exited the Ti alloy, the cutting edges
pushed the Ti alloy outward, creating the burr around
the perimeter of the hole.
This was veried by noting that HSS and HSS-Co
drills had the most heat and thrust force induced by
rapid tool wear and produced the largest burr heights.
Carbide drills experienced the least wear and resulted in
the smallest burr heights.
3.4. Surface topography
Surface roughnesses in the Gr/Bi and Ti alloy were
found to depend upon spindle speed and feed. Fig. 12
shows surface roughness dependence on speed and feed.
Generally, the surface roughness in the Ti alloy holes
(Figs. 12(c) and (d)) was much smoother compared to the
Gr/Bi (Figs. 12(a) and (b)). Interestingly, HSS and HSS-
Co drills produced the higher Ra values for Ti alloys with
decreasing feed, while carbide drills did not. One expla-
nation is that the temperature of HSS and HSS-Co drills
got arising a lot with low feed, which encouraged ank
wear of the tools. Those worn drills and Ti alloys with
high temperature made the surface roughness high at low
feeds. Fig. 13 shows a micro view of drilled Gr/Bi walls.
There is severe damage and ber pull out at the ber ply
135 from the cutting direction. This is due to the inter-
mittent fracture across the ber direction [1517]. The
depth of ber pull outs also depends upon feed. As
shown in Fig. 13(c), the bers of Gr/Bi, machined at 0.25
mm/rev were pulled out very deeply while shallow ber
pull outs occurred with 0.03 mm/rev feed. Feeds that are
too high increase the surface roughness because the drill
tends to pull the bers instead of shearing them (referred
to as ber breakout). Fig. 13(c) shows sporadic large
holes in the Gr/Bi machined at high feed, 0.25 mm/rev.
Fig. 13. Scanning electron micrographs of the drilled surface of Gr/Bi; (a) and (b) carbide 0.03 mm/rev, 660 rpm, (c) carbide 0.25 mm/rev, 660 rpm,
(d) HSS-Co 0.08 mm/rev, 2720 rpm.
76 M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777
Fig. 13(d) shows the Gr/Bi wall drilled at 2720 rpm. At
high spindle speeds, matrix degradation occurred from
high temperatures (approximately 270C) in the cutting
zone. Excessive temperatures when drilling Gr/Bi will
cause matrix degradation. This lead to debonding at the
bermatrix interface, resulting in a severe material
damage. Matrix smearing also occurred when high
spindle speeds were used which resulted in decreasing the
surface roughness. However, if the bers were pulled out
from the matrix material, the resulting damage increased
the surface roughness.
4. Summary and conclusions
Experimental study of drilling holes in Gr/BiTi
stacks was conducted by using dierent tool materials
and process parameters. The most signicant issue
arising when drilling Gr/BiTi stacks is the low thermal
conductivity of Ti alloys, resulting in heat generation
around the drilling region and increased tool tempera-
tures. High temperature, which is produced by Ti cut-
ting, were found to increase the radial distance of
damage at the interface and tool wear, which leads to
increased cutting forces, burr heights, heat induced
delamination, and surface roughness. In the case of HSS
and HSS-Co drills, the highest temperature occurred at
high spindle speeds and low feeds. Thus, increasing
speed leads to increased tool wear, larger entrance and
exit burrs, larger damage rings, and decreased number
of holes drilled. Increasing feed leads to increased drill
thrust and torque for both materials, smaller entrance
and exit burrs, reduced damage distance on composites
and surface roughness in Ti, increased surface roughness
in Gr/Bi materials, and increased number of holes dril-
led. Thrust force and feed rate have an eect on damage
distance and exit burr height. Of the three drill materials
tested, carbide tools, which have the highest hot hard-
ness, produced the smallest cutting force magnitudes,
the smallest burrs, negligible damage rings, and the
highest hole quality.
Following are the summaries of this investigation:
On drilling by HSS and HSS-Co drills, increased feed
resulted in increased drill thrust and torque for com-
posite-metal stack materials, smaller entrance and
exit burrs, reduced heat induced damage thickness
of composites, increased surface roughness in both
materials, and increased number of holes drilled.
On drilling by HSS and HSS-Co drills, increasing
speed led to increased tool wear induced by heat gen-
eration on Ti machining, larger entrance and exit
burrs, larger damage rings, and decreased number
of holes drilled.
It is recommended that using carbide drills at 0.08
mm/rev and 660 rpm would be the best experimental
conditions for drilling Gr/BiTi stacks. Cutting
forces, tool wear and surface roughness increase dras-
tically at high speeds of 1750 rpm with a feed that ex-
ceeds the ply thickness.
References
[1] Abrate S. In: Mallick PK, editor. Machining of composite
materials in composites engineering handbook. New York:
Marcel Dekker; 1999. pp. 777810.
[2] Hung NP, Loh NL, Venkatesh VC. In: Jahanmir S, Ramulu M,
Koshy P, editors. Machining of metal matrix composites in
machining of ceramics and composites. New York: Marcel
Dekker; 1999. p. 295356.
[3] Galloway DF. Some experiments on the inuence of various
factors on drill performance. Trans ASME 1957;79:191231.
[4] Agapiou JS, Stephenson DA. Analytical and experimental studies
of drill temperature. Trans ASME J Eng Ind 1994;116:5460.
[5] Maykuth DJ, Monroe RE, Favor RJ, Moon DP. Titanium base
alloys 6Al4V. Processes and properties handbook. Defense
Metals Information Center; 1971. p. II-3.
[6] Zlatin N, Christopher J. Recommendations for machining high
strength steels and titanium alloys. SME Technical Paper No.
MR71-819, SME; 1971. p. 18.
[7] Ho-Cheng H, Dhran CK. Delamination during drilling in
composite laminates. Trans ASME J Eng Ind 1990;112:2369.
[8] Jain S, Yang DCH. Eects of feed rate and chisel edge on
delamination in composites drilling. Trans ASME J Eng Ind
1993;115:398405.
[9] Ramulu M, Young P, Kao H. Drilling of graphite/bismaleimide
composite material. J Mater Eng Performance 1999;8:3308.
[10] Colligan K, Ramulu M. Experimental investigation of pitting of
hole surfaces when drilling graphite/epoxy materials. ASME
Bound Volume 1992;MD-Vol. 35:1125.
[11] Colligan K. New tool drills both titanium and carbon composites.
Am Machinist 1994;138(10):568.
[12] Weiss RA. Portable air feed peck drilling of graphite composite,
titanium and other materials in dissimilar combinations. Society
of Manufacturing Engineers, Technical Paper No. AD89-642,
SME; 1989. p. 110.
[13] King RI. High speed drilling of aluminum alloy and aluminum
graphite epoxy sandwich structure. In: 10th North American
Manufacturing Research Conference. SME; 1982. p. 32024.
[14] Massarweh WA, Hough Jr. CL. Performance analysis for drilling
in thermoplastic composite-aluminum stacks. Compos Mater
Technol 1992;45:2539.
[15] Wang DH, Ramulu M, Arola D. Orthogonal cutting mechanisms
of graphite/epoxy composite. Part II: Multi-directional laminate.
Int J Mach Tools Manuf 1995;35(12):163948.
[16] Wang DH, Ramulu M, Arola D. Orthogonal cutting mechanisms
of graphite/epoxy composite. Part I: Unidirectional laminate. Int J
Mach Tools Manuf 1995;35(12):162838.
[17] Arola D, Ramulu M, Wang DH. Chip formation in orthogonal
trimming of graphite/epoxy composite. Composites: Part A
1996;27(2):12133.
M. Ramulu et al. / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 6777 77