Drilling fiber reinforced plastics (FRPs) manufactured by hand lay-up:: influence of matrix (Viapal VUP 9731 and ATLAC 382-05)

Drilling composite materials is a very common and an important process used in industry to perform the assembly of aerospace and automotive composite structures. However, drilling composite materials present a number of problems such as delamination associated with the characteristics of the material and with the used cutting parameters. In order to reduce these problems a study is present with the objective of evaluating the cutting parameters (cutting velocity and feed) and the influence of the matrix under specific cutting force (k(c)), delamination factor (F-d) and surface roughness (R-a) in two types of matrix (Viapal VUP 9731 and ATLAC 382-05). A plan of experiments, based on the orthogonal array, was established considering drilling with prefixed Cutting parameters in two hand lay-up FRPs materials. Finally the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was preformed to investigate the cutting characteristics of FRPs composite material using a cemented carbide (K10) drill with appropriate geometry. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.