Effect of tool wear on drilling unidirectional CFRP laminates in different fiber cutting angles

Drilling performance of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) aggravates significantly with serious tool wear caused by highly abrasive fibers. Because of the anisotropy of CFRP, the angle between fiber orientation and cutting direction, namely, fiber cutting angle, also plays a crucial part in the drilling performance. To enhance drilling performance, this paper initially conducts a comprehensive experimental study on the effects of tool wear on thrust force, exit temperature, and hole wall defect in different fiber cutting angles in the drilling of unidirectional CFRP. The results demonstrate that the profile of worn cutting edge is an approximate elliptical arc and the half axis lengths of the elliptical arc are utilized to evaluate cutting edge wear. Tool wear on the cutting edge, flank face, and rake face all deteriorates with the number of drilled holes. Tool wear has a more significant influence on thrust force in the fiber cutting angle region of 0~90° than in the fiber cutting angle region of 90~180°. With increasing tool wear, the exit temperature distribution can still be approximate to an ellipse. The variation of exit temperature caused by tool wear in the major axis direction is still no less than that in other directions. In addition, on hole wall, tool wear causes severe crack defects in the fiber cutting angle region of 0~90° and cavity defects in the fiber cutting angle region of 90~180°.