An Experimental Study of the Drilling of Aramid Composites

Major drilling characteristics of Aramid fiber-reinforced plastics are experimentally investigated. The chip appears highly deformed and tends to smear on the tool. Forces and, mainly, torque are more influenced by the tool diameter than by the feed rate and cutting speed. On the contrary, the specific cutting energy strongly depends upon the feed rate due to size effects of the tool tip. The damage in the work, i.e., delamination at entry and exit side, can be controlled by taking into account the relationships between machining parameters and forces and torque. Generally, the tool fails by gross brittle failure at the periphery rather than by generalized land wear.