Drilling of a Bidirectional Jute Fibre and Cork-Reinforced Polymer Biosandwich Structure: ANN and RSM approaches for Modelling and Optimization

Abstract

The present study examined the effects of drilling parameters such as spindle speed (N), feed rate (f), diameter of the tools (d) and drill geometry such as twist drills (HSS-TiN) and brad & spur drills (BSD) used on delamination damage in a biosandwich structure consisting of an epoxy matrix reinforced with bidirectional jute fibres and cork (JFCE). Response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were exploited to evaluate the influence and interaction of the cutting parameters on the delamination factor (Fd) at the output during drilling. In addition, several optimization methods, such as desirability-based RSM, the genetic algorithm (GA) and the fmincon function, were applied to validate the optimal combination of cutting parameters (f, N and d) in the structures studied in biosandwiches during this research. According to the experimental results, severe damage was indeed observed with the BSD tool (Fd = 1.684) compared to the HSS-TiN tool (Fd = 1.555) for the same cutting conditions. To obtain the minimum Fd, the optimum conditions obtained by GA were respectively 1397.54 rev/min, 51.162 mm/min and 5.981 mm for HSS-TiN for f, N and d.