Determination of optimum parameters on delamination in drilling of GFRP composites by Taguchi method

Drilling is one of the important machining processes in hole making operations. Delamination is a vital problem during any drilling operation. It causes structural integrity reduction and poor assembly tolerance as well as potential for long-term performance deterioration. As a result, drilling of any material requires dimensional stability and interface quality. In this study, glass fibre reinforced plastic composite is selected as experimental material for investigation of cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed rate and tool geometry) affecting delamination in drilling operation. Moreover, the Taguchi method is used to determine optimal cutting parameters for damage-free drilling material. A plan of experiments, based on L’16 Taguchi design method, is performed drilling with cutting parameters in a GFRP composite. The orthogonal array, signal-tonoise (S/N) ratio and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are employed to investigate the optimal drilling parameters of GFRP composites using four different drills. The experimental results demonstrate that the feed rate is the major parameter among the controllable factors that influence the delamination. Additionally, the optimal combinations of the cutting parameters are determined.