Experimental Investigations on Some Aspects of Machinability in Drilling of Glass Epoxy Polymer Composites

The glass epoxy polymer composites are extensively used for a wide variety of applications in aerospace, automotive, and chemical industries due to an excellent property profile. Even though these composites are produced as near net shapes, the machining has to be performed in the final stage of production. Drilling is one of the most common machining processes used to install the fasteners for assembly of laminates. However, the drilling of these composites is rather a difficult task due to the highly abrasive nature of reinforcement and hence there is a need to study the machining performance. An attempt has been made in this article to investigate the effects of spindle speed and feed on machinability aspects, namely, thrust force, hole surface roughness, and specific cutting coefficient during drilling of glass epoxy composites. The drilling experiments were performed as per full factorial design for both glass epoxy composites and silicon carbide-filled glass epoxy composite materials. The response surface methodology based mathematical models were developed for analyzing the effects of cutting conditions on machinability characteristics. The parametric analysis reveals that the silicon carbide-filled glass epoxy composite material provides better machinability compared to glass epoxy composite without the addition of filler.