Effect of Process Parameters on Drilling of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers

This paper presents the experimental investigation on the implementation of Taguchi technique to optimize the drilling process parameters of nano-filled carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) to minimize the thrust force. The experiments were performed by using three drill bit types by varying point angles at three levels of drilling speeds, feed rates, percentage of CNT and point angles. The responses, namely thrust force, were measured by using Kistler multicomponent dynamometer. The drilling process parameters which directly influenced the performance characteristics were optimized using Taguchi technique. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results clearly indicated that the feed rate was the significant factor which affected the responses. Thereafter, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis was used to discuss the effect of drilling parameters on the microstructure of the investigated hybrid CFRP.