Drilling of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer Materials - A Review

Drilling is a secondary manufacturing process used for the finishing of the parts done in the primary manufacturing. For drilling of traditional materials, there are several techniques available to attain the objective of good circularity of the hole without any damage. Drilling of the CFRP material is difficult, because of its anisotropic and non-homogeneous in nature. Carbon fibre reinforced materials extensively used in the aerospace industries, because of its specific properties in strength and stiffness. Hence, the drilling of CFRP requires a lot of research for using in the aerospace industry. The principal aim of this paper is to present an extensive literature report in the drilling of CFRP and that includes the studies on different input variables such as machining parameters (speed, feed and drill point angle) and drill biton the drilling induced damages. Also, the study focuses effects of input variables on delamination and hole circularity and induced thrust force and torque.