Drilling Behavior of Flax/Poly(Lactic Acid) Bio-Composite Laminates: An Experimental Investigation

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the effects of machining parameters such as spindle speed, feed rate and drill diameter on machinability of flax/poly(lactic acid) bio-composites, to analyze the relations among cutting forces, drillinginduced damages and crack propagation of the drilled samples. In particular, a set of drilling experiments were conducted using different drilling conditions and a new low-cost measurement set-up was developed to measure the cutting force during the drilling operation. In addition, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to identify the significance of each individual cutting parameter. The experimental results indicate the relation between the thrust force and the machinability parameters of flax fiber reinforced bio-composite.The increase in spindle speed reduces thrust force and delamination size of the drilled holes, whereas an increase in feed and drill diameter leads to a considerable increase in both thrust force and delamination factor. The effect of spindle speed on peripheral damage was not significant for the drills tested, though the feed rate was found to play the key role on the delamination damage area. The best hole quality was achieved with the samples drilled at spindle speed and feed rate of 3000 rpm and 0.11 mm/rev, respectively.

Experimental Analysis of Kerf Taper Angle in Cutting Process of Sugar Palm Fiber Reinforced Unsaturated Polyester Composites with Laser Beam and Abrasive Water Jet Cutting Technologies

“…However, its use is spreading due to the advantages of natural fibers that made them to be an acceptable alternative to synthetic fibers in many applications, especially considering the property of natural decomposition of natural fibers, which makes them environmentally friendly materials [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ], in addition to that they are extracted from renewable resources that require no energy consumption to produce them, unlike the synthetic fibers production processes. They also have certain other advantages, such as low density, low cost, enhanced recovery, and flexibility [ 6 , 7 ]. Owing to the mentioned benefits, natural fibers have attracted a lot of attention in the advanced polymeric composites field for a variety of engineering applications as a reinforcement material for a broad spectrum of matrices [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Conventional and unconventional machining performance of natural fibre-reinforced polymer composites: A review

“…The composite with 5% sugarcane fibre produced a lower thrust force of 34 N at the feed rate and spindle speed of 50 mm/ min and 1000 r/min, respectively. Lotfi et al 72 observed a 42% reduction in thrust force when machining with a 4 mm diameter of drill tool at spindle speed of 3000 r/ min, similarly 35% reduction on 8 mm diameter of drill tool at the same spindle speed of drilling. Navaneethakrishnan and Athijayamani 73 observed the drilling force and torque variation with respect to the point angle, spindle speed and feed rate on coconut shell powder filled sisal hybrid composite.…”

“…The possibility of producing a hole with uncut fibres and fibre protrusion is high when drilling at a higher feed rate. 72 Drilling studies on cotton fibre composite results stated that there is no direct correlation between the thrust force and delamination, since the result evident that there is no high delamination at high thrust force produced holes. 70 This result is completely opposite to the results of Lotfi et al 80 Lotfi reported that the thrust force and delamination are closely related.…”

“…By controlling thrust force, it is possible to produce delamination free drilling in fibre composites. 72 Machining with larger sized tool, the contact area of tool-composite is high. This produces increased stress in the composite which results in high delamination.…”

Experimental and numerical investigations of the damages induced while drilling flax/epoxy composite

“…In the open literature, a few studies have considered machining damage resulting from drilling of flax NFRPs. [18][19][20][21][22] El-Sawi et al 18 have shown that flax NFRPs drilled by conventional methods sustained more machining damage than those drilled by abrasive water jet. The cause of increased machining damage was attributed to fiber/matrix delamination and debonding.…”