International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Influence of Process Parameters on Delamination

of Drilling of (GF/PC) Glass Fiber Reinforced
Polycarbonate matrix Composites
T. Srinivasan1 *
Research Scholar,
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,
JNTUH, Hyderabad, A.P, India.
seenusreeja@gmail.com,

K. Palanikumar

K. Rajagopal

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,

Sri Sai Ram Institute of Technology,
Chennai, India.
palanikumar_k@yahoo.com,

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

JNTUH, Hyderabad, A.P, India
rajagopalmail@yahoo.com

Abstract-- Drilling is an important and final operation in the

assembly of structural components of aircraft and automobiles.
This paper determines the influence of cutting forces in the
drilling of GF/PC composites. An assembly, the quality of the
drilled holes highly affects the joint of two or more structural
components. Drilling of glass fiber composite materials is a vital
task for manufacturers. The best methodology for achieving
good quality holes during the drilling of glass fiber reinforced
plastics is by identify of the cutting forces. Improper cutting
forces lead to the damage of composite materials. This paper
studies the influence of various feed rate on thrust force, spindle
speed and drill bit geometry using Brad and spur drills. This
experimental result shows that delamination fully depends on the
feed rate. The experimental results have been clearly explained
with the help of 3D response graph and Scanning Electron
Microscopic (SEM) images.

Keyword-- drilling, Delamination, Thrust Force, Glass fiber,

Polycarbonate matrix, Scanning Electron Microscope

I.

performance in terms of strength and stiffness, corrosion

resistance, low thermal conductivity and light weight
construction. Palanikumar and Valarmathi [2] have concluded
that the feed rate and drill diameter are the highly important
key factors followed by the spindle speed on delamination.
Palanikumar and Srinivasan [3] have experimentally
investigated the increase of spindle speed that reduces the
delamination. Lin et al [4] have studied the characterization
of polycarbonate matrix with glass fiber reinforcement
composites.
Malhotra et al [5] have investigated the
processing of glass mat with thermoplastics by hot pressing in
a hydraulic compression molding machine.
Rao and
Rudramoorthy [6] have presented a detailed study of
delamination damage measured by various drill types, three
different feed rate and spindle speed.
The suggested
optimized cutting parameters have conducted the number of
experiments and optimized with the help of design expert
software. Palanikumar [7] have resulted the mechanism of
drilling of glass fiber reinforced composite materials based on
the fiber orientation, toughness and flexibility of the fibers
used in the experiments.

INTRODUCTION
II.

Composites are light weight materials, which are made up of

two or more different material constituents. The materials
have two important phases as fiber and matrix. The fiber or
reinforcement is called stronger phase and the matrix is called
softer phase. In the last few decades, glass fiber reinforced
plastics are used widely in primary structures due to their
good properties. Diaz and Rubio [1] have investigated the
present worlds need to replace the traditional metallic
materials and conventional composites materials with nonconventional light weight composite materials. The usage of
light weight composite materials has been increased in
engineering applications like marine industry, aircraft
industry, automobile industry and spaceships due to their
significant advantages over other materials. The advantages
such as high fatigue strength, low density and its high

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
291

EXPERIMENTAL

A. Materials

(a) Final Stack Sheet Preparation

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

drilling of the fabricated glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate

composites at three different cutting speeds, feed rate and drill
diameters. The work piece is clamped on the dynamometer
with proper support. The drilling is carried out on a vertical
machining centre (VMC). The damage around the holes is
measure by metzer megavision profile projector. Delamination
is the ratio of maximum diameter of hole, which has been
measured around the holes to the drill diameter of the hole.
The value of damage factor (Fd) is calculated by the following
formulae and experimental cutting parameters are listed below
in Table.1

(b) Compression Mold Machine

Fig.2 Typical Delamination

(c) GF/PC Composites plate

In this study, GFRTP laminate has 4 mm thickness and

250mm x 250mm dimension used as a workpiece material.
The Polycarbonate polymer sheet is used as matrix phase, in
the form of 0.5mm thick film and the glass fiber (GFR) woven
roving mat is used as reinforcement for thermoplastic
composites.

Fd = Dmax / D.(1)
Fd Delamination Factor
D Drill Diameter of the hole in mm
Dmax Maximum Diameter of the damage zone in mm

B. Fabrication
The seven numbers of Polycarbonate sheets and six number of
glass fiber woven mat have been alternately arranged and the
final stack is placed in the cavity of Hydraulic compression
mold machine. The stack has been pressed at 260C for 30
minutes in between two aluminum mold platens under 5 bar
consolidation pressure in the heat press. After that, the mold
is cooled for 30 minutes in the same press under 5 bar
pressure at room temperature. Laminates Stack is removed
from the mould and then it is cooled. The laminates final
stack is carried out in the mold cavity, then the work plate is
cleaned and their edges are trimmed to the required
dimension. Polycarbonate offers good toughness, good
impact strength and low density.
This study requires
manufacturing of composite laminate. The final dimension of
the work laminates is 250mm x 250mm x 4mm with
approximate volume fraction of 1:1.

Levels
Parameters
1

Drill diameter () mm

12

Feed (f) mm/min

100

200

300

Spindle speed (N) rpm

1000

3000

5000

Table 1 Experimental condition

C. Drilling
Solid Carbide material Brad & spur type drill bit is used as a
cutting tool in this study. The experiment is conducted by the

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
292

Profile Projector

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

6,9 & 12 mm Brad & Spur Drill used

f =200, dia- 12
Speed = 3000

f = 300, dia-12
Speed = 1000

f =300, dia -12

Speed = 2000

f =100, dia- 9
Speed = 3000

f =300, dia- 9
Speed = 1000

f =200, dia- 9
Speed = 2000

Fig. 4 Interaction Effect between the parameters spindle speed and feed rate
on delamination factor

Fig.5 Effect of spindle speed and

Feed rate on Delamination Factor
f=200, dia- 6
Speed = 3000

f=300, dia- 6
Speed = 1000

III.

f=300, dia- 6
Speed = 2000

Fig.6 Effect of spindle speed and Drill Diameter on Delamination

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Delamination factor is important for obtaining good quality

holes in the drilling of GF/PC. The optimization on influence
of cutting parameters in the drilling of composite materials is
highly important. The analysis of cutting parameters like feed
rate and spindle speed and drill diameter on drilling of GF/PC
composites by using 3D response graphs in the figure below.

Fig.7 Effect of Feed rate and Drill

Diameter on Delamination Factor

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
293

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

The interaction influence between the cutting parameters like

spindle speed and feed rate is shows in Fig.4. The influence
of increase of feed rate and spindle speed is shows in Fig.5.
The results explained that the higher feed rate leads to more
delamination. Fig.8 shows the SEM (Scanning Electron
Micrograph) images of the drilled holes observed in drilling of
polycarbonate matrix with glass fiber reinforced composite
materials. Fig.6 shows the influence of spindle speed and drill
diameter on drilling of thermoplastic composite materials.
The results indicate that the change of drill diameter leads to
medium delamination. Fig.7 shows the interaction influence
of feed rate and drill diameter. The results shows that the
increase of feed rate and drill diameter increases the
delamination damage in drilling or polycarbonate matrix with
glass fiber reinforced composite. The Scanning Electron
Micrograph images shows clearly voids observed in some
place and also drilling surface shows the incomplete
distribution of matrix of the composite materials. This can be
avoided by using proper fabrication parameters such as
temperature and pressure.
CONCLUSION
Figs. 8 shows the cross sectional view of the composite
specimen. The figure indicates the distribution of fiber and
resin in the workpiece

REFERENCES
[1] Diaz, J. and Rubio, L.,Developments to manufacture structural
aeronautical parts in carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic materials, Journal
of Materials Processing Technology, Vol. 143-144,pp. 342-346. (2003).
[2] Palanikumar. k, Valarmathi.T.N and S. Sekar, Parametric Analysis on
Delamination in Drilling of Wood Composite Panel, Indian Journal of
Science and Technology, ISSN: 0974-6846 , Vol 6 (4), (2013).
[3] Palanikumar. K, Srinivasan.T and Rajagopal. K, Delamination in Drilling
of GFR/High Impact Polystyrene Composites, Advanced Materials Research
Vols. 622-623. pp 1271-1274. (2013).
[4] Lin SS, Lin JC, Yang YK Optimization of mechanical characteristics of
short glass fiber and polytetrafluoroethylene reinforced polycarbonate
composites via D-optimal mixture design Polym-Plast Technol 49(2):195
203. (2010).
[5] Dineshwaran Vijayakumar, M. Mudhukrishnan, S.K. Malhotra, K.
Chandrasekaran, Some Studies on Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastics
Laminates Fabricated by Film Stacking Method, Advanced Materials
Manufacturing & Characterization Vol 3 Issue 1 (2013).
[6] Rao, B. S., Rudramoorthy, R., Srinivas, S., & Rao, B. N. Effect of drilling
induced damage on notched tensile and pin bearing strengths of woven GFR
epoxy composites. Materials Science and Engineering: A, 472, 347352.
(2008).
[7] K. Palanikumar, Modeling and analysis for surface roughness in
machining glass fibre reinforced plastics using response surface methodology,
Materials and Design 28. 26112618. (2007).

Polycarbonate

Damage Fiber

GFRP

due to drilling Polycarbonate

Intersection
between Fiber and
Matrix

Fig. 8 SEM macrograph of the hole images of GFR/PC

The increase of thrust force increases the

delamination,
Medium and low feed and medium and high spindle
speed help to reduce the delamination
By applying the proper cutting conditions, the
delamination in drilling reduced.

The result shows that the feed rate and workpiece

material thickness is proved to be responsible for
delamination along with the spindle speed and drill
diameter

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