Drilling of long fiber reinforced thermoplastics-Influence of the cutting edge on the machining results

The cutting edge has a large impact on the performance of a cutting tool when drilling fiber reinforced plastics (frp). Delamination, burrs and defects at hole entry and exit pose a challenge when drilling frp. Within the presented work the influence of the cutting edge on drilled hole quality when machining long fiber reinforced thermoplastics is investigated. Major influencing determinants on the machining results when drilling long fiber reinforced thermoplastics are feed force and fiber separation. The interdependencies between cutting edge radius, feed forces and fiber separation are described in a phenomenological model. (C) 2011 CIRP.