International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Hole Accuracy During Deep Hole Drilling for

Hydraulic Cylinder Application
JR. Clifford Benjamin Raj

B. Anand Ronald
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
SSN College of Engineering
Kalavakkam, Chennai, India
12anandronaldb@ssn.edu.in

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

SSN College of Engineering
Kalavakkam, Chennai, India
benjaminraj2008@gmail.com

A. Velayudham

Prasmit Kumar Nayak

Combat Vehicle Research
Development Establishment
Chennai, India
prasmit1@gmail.com

Combat Vehicle Research

Development Establishment
Chennai, India
vel_sivam@yahoo.com
Abstract Deep-hole drilling is a process in which the hole length
will be very higher when compared to diameter of the drill hole
(i.e. length to diameter ratio will be greater than 5). Drilling a
deep hole with very high accuracy is difficult process. The
current project is about the production of deep hole with the aim
to produce a chip which is not a continuous chip and also not a
powdery chip. These conditions can be attained by varying the
spindle speed and the tool feed rate.
KeywordsDrilling, Deep-hole drilling, spade drill, length to
diameter ratio

I. INTRODUCTION
Drilling is a cutting process used in manufacturing
industry in which hole is made using drill tool called drill bit
or simply twist drill. The drill bit is a multi-point rotary
cutting tool; sometimes single-point drill tool is also used. The
drill is pressed against the work-piece while the spindle
rotates at very high speed, which cuts the work-piece
materials in the form of chip. For normal drilling process l/d
ratio i.e. length to diameter ratio will be very small less than 5.
If the l/d ratio goes beyond 5, the process is called deep-hole
drilling (Refer Fig. 1: L/D ratio for deep-hole drilling). Deep-hole
drilling process is one of the important processes in producing
hydraulic cylinders, automobile fuel pumps, oil rigs etc.

Fig 1: L/D ratio for deep-hole drilling

The main problem arising in a deep-hole drilling is

1. Accuracy or straightness of hole produced,
2. Control of chip morphology like continuous,
discontinuous chip and chip removal
3. Coolant transmission to cutting edge

Heat disposal
Various authors have tried to study the different
aspects of deep-hole drilling such as surface finish,
temperature of cutting surface, surface roughness, tool
stability, tool life and failure. Laurentiu et al. [1] had used the
Taguchis method of fractioned factorial designed
experiments to study the required pecking cycles for twist drill
tool. Andreas Zabel et al. [2] had studied the influence of tool
geometry on tool wear and chip formation in single- lip deephole drilling. There had been improvement in the surface
quality due to the combination of both conventional and laser
drilling process. D. Biermann et al. [3] had done an
optimization study to reduce weight of the tool. Based on an
FEM analysis, the load occurred in tool area was found out.
The unwanted material was removed where the load was less
and weight of the tool was reduced. Turgay Kivak et al. [4]
had done an optimization study on the various parameters of
drilling like surface roughness (Ra) and thrust force (Ff). Dirk
Biermann et al [5]. had studied the effect of cutting edge
preparation to enhance the performance of single lip deep hole
drilling operations. In his further works, he had also studied
the bore-hole qualities, tool wear and also has conducted the
heat flow study during the machining [6,7]. Gao et al. [8] had
studied the BTA drill tool machining mechanism based on
chip deformation and associated drilling forces in deep hole
situation. Duck Whan Kim et al. [9] has studied the effect of
pecking cycles on the tool life during deep hole drilling.
Among the above said problems, most of the
researches have studied the aspects like surface finish, tool life
and heat flow. The present work focuses on enhancing the
accuracy by adjusting the process parameters like spindle
speed and tool feed. Although deep holes of larger diameter
can be made using appropriate casting patterns, problems like
crack or even complete failure of parts will arise when such
parts are used in applications like aircraft landing gears,
hydraulic cylinder of shock absorber, Hydraulic forging ram
where the shock loads of more than 3MPa are applied. These
hydraulic cylinders require drilling of hole with depth that
reaches 5 times its diameter or higher especially in landing
gear assembly, fuel pump etc. Hence deep hole drilling
process is preferred for production of deep hole in this area of
application.

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

II. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS

A. Workpiece Material
The work-piece used is 709M40 (EN 19) steel.
709M40 is a 1% Cr-Mo medium hardenability general
purpose high tensile steel. The chemical composition of the
material is shown in table 1
TABLE I
COMPOSITION OF 709M40 STEEL

Chemical

Car

Silic

Mang

Phosp

Composition

bon

on

anese

horus

% Present

0.40

0.25

0.85

<0.04

Sulphur

Fig 3: Main deep-hole drill

Chro
mium

<0.04

1.00

Fig 4: Pilot drill

Fig 5: Spade Drilling Tool Nomenclature

Fig 2: Hydraulic cylinder for the specified application

B. Selection of Drill Tool

There are various types of drilling tool
available in the market with various cutting condition. The
requirement for the current project is a tool which can produce
a deep hole at shortest possible time and also gives higher
accuracy in terms of cylindricity and concentricity. From the
literature [10], it was found that SPADE DRILL is capable
of undergoing drilling at a single instance without any pecking
action and also higher feeds can be given. Hence spade drill
with M35 (i.e. super cobalt with higher cobalt content and
with a special coating) tool grade was selected as the drill tool
for the current project (Fig. 3: Main deep-hole drill & Fig. 4: Pilot drill).

C. Drilling of the Workpiece

The horizontal machining center was used for the
drilling of deep hole. The experimental setup consists of
work-piece which is kept stationary while the tool is rotated
(Fig. 6: Drilling arrangement & Fig. 7: Drilled work-piece with drill
inserted). The work-piece has to be placed in the v-block and
properly mounted using clamp arrangement. The workpiece
had to check for the prefect straightness based on the
machines position. The tool has to be mounted to the arbour
and the position of tool should be aligned based on the
workpiece.
The alignment of work-piece and tool should be done
using a dial gauge of required accuracy. After positioning
both tool and the work-piece, the drilling process is done.
Coolant flow is properly maintained to flush out the chip
efficiently. The chip produce during drilling has to be
monitored properly

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machined work-piece.

The bore gauge is kept at the certain

distance and at particular position and the variation in each
direction is noted. The values obtained are shown in the table.

Fi
g 9: Measuring position of machined work-piece
Fig 6: Drilling arrangement

TABLE II
DETAILS OF TRIAL RUN FOR DEEP-HOLE DRILLING

S.No

Length

Diameter

Variation In

Variation In

X- Direction

Y-Direction

Units
1
2

mm
10
50

mm
54
54

mm
0.05
0.05

mm
0.04
0.05

100

54

0.05

0.05

150

54

0.05

0.06

200

54

0.07

0.06

250

54

0.08

0.09

Fig 7: Drilled work-piece with drill inserted

300

54

0.1

0.1

. The chip produce should neither be discontinuous

chip (powdery) nor a continuous chip. The powdery chip
denotes the recut taking place inside the cutting zone which
will cause damages to tool and the workpiece surface, while
continuous chip means high spindle speed which will cause
chip evacuation and also high temperature causing damage to
the tool. Hence the speed and feed are varied based on the size
of the chip produced and generic tool feed and spindle speed
rate has been obtained. Spindle speed is from 100-150rpm
while tool feed is from 12-20mm/min. The chip formed is
shown in the Fig.8: Chip morphology formed during deep-hole drilling at

390

54

0.12

0.12

A graph was drawn between the depth of the hole

and the variation in the different direction. The graph is shown
in Fig. 10: Variation of the hole accuracy with different depth below.

various

Fig. 10: Variation of the hole accuracy with different depth

Fig 8: Chip morphology formed during deep-hole drilling at various
conditions

D. Measuring of the Accuracy

The drilled work-piece is measured for accuracy of
the internal hole using bore gauge. The measurement of hole
at various positions is shown in the Fig. 9: Measuring position of

III. CONCLUSION
From the preliminary deep-hole drill studies done, it
is has been observed that, greater the hole depth the accuracy
of the hole drilled decreases owing to vibrations and the effect
of chip recut and accumulation at the cutting zone. Hence an

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optimum process parameters have to be identified to get better

hole accuracy by doing deep hole drilling at various
conditions using Taguchis optimization technique.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author is grateful to the Combat Vehicle
Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) Chennai for providing the facility and the guidance for doing
this project at their highly esteemed organization.
REFERENCES
[1]

Laurentiu, Aurel Mihail Robust engineering of deep drilling process

by surface state optimization, CIRP Conference on Modeling of
Machining operations, Vol.8, pp.582-587, 2013.

[2]

Andreas Zabel, Markus Heilmann Deep hole drilling using tools with
small diameters- Process analysis and process design, CIRP AnnalsManufacturing Technology, Vol.61, pp.111-114, 2012.

[3]

D. Biermann, M. Kersting, N. Kessler Process adapted structure

optimization of deep hole drilling tools, CIRP Annals- Manufacturing
Technology, Vol.58, pp.89-92, 2009.

[4]

Turgay Kivak, Gurcan Samtas, Adem Cicek Taguchi method based

optimization of drilling parameters in drilling of AISI 316 steel with
PVD monolayer and multilayer coated HSS drills Measurement,
Vol.45, pp.1547-1557, 2012.

[5]

Dirk Biermann, Mark Wolf, Robert Abmuth Cutting edge preparation

to enhance the performance of single lip deep hole drills, CIRP
Conference on High Performance Cutting, Vol.1, pp.172-177, 2012.

[6]

D. Biermann, M. Heilmann, M. Kirschner Analysis of the influence of

tool geometry on surface integrity in single-lip deep hole drilling with
small diameters, Procedia Engineering, Vol.19, pp.16-21, 2011.

[7]

D. Biermann, I. Iovkov, H. Blum, A. Rademacher, K. Taebi, F.T.

Suttmeier, N. Klein Thermal aspects in deep hole drilling of
aluminium cast alloy using twist drills and MQL CIRP Conference on
Manufacturing Systems, Vol.3, pp.245-250, 2012.

[8]

C.H. Gao, K. Cheng, D. Kirkwood The investigation on the

machining process pf BTA deep hole drilling, Journal of Material
Processing Technology, Vol.107, pp.222-227, 2000.

[9]

Duck Whan Kim, Young Soo Lee, Min Soo Park, Chong Nam Chu
Tool life improvement by peck drilling and thrust force monitoring
during deep micro hole drilling of steel, Machine Tools and
Manufacturing, Vol.49, pp.246-255, 2009.

[10] Hanxin Zhao, Kornel F. Ehmann

Development and performance

analysis of new spade bit designs, International Journal of Machine

Tools and Manufacturing, Vol.42, pp.1403-1414, 2002.

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