Tool Wear of Advanced Coated Tools in Drilling of CFRP

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of super-hard ceramic coatings by evaluating tool wear when drilling carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) composite. The drilling experiments of CFRP are conducted with diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated, AlMgB14 (BAM) coated, AlCrN and Si3N4 and TiN (simply denoted as (AlCrSi/Ti)N) coated, and uncoated tungsten carbide drills. Each coating, dictated by its unique processing technique, provides unique thickness and morphology, and its physical properties, which makes the comparison among the coatings much difficult but enables to deduce the desirable attributes in the prospective coating ideally suited in drilling CFRP. To do so, after the drilling experiments, the tool wear was captured using the scanning electron and confocal laser scanning microscopes to construct the wear evolution that enables us to evaluate each coating qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Among the drills tested, the (AlCrSi/Ti)N-coated drills provided the best performance despite of the fact that (AlCrSi/Ti)N coating particularly are not harder than any other coating. The superior performance of the (AlCrSi/Ti)N coating can be explained by the comparable stiffness to the carbide substrate, 7.3 μm-thick coating consisting of the numerous nanoscale alternating layers between nanocomposite of AlCrN and Si3N4 and TiN coatings and the enhanced adhesion, which provide the effective cutting of carbon fibers. However, the thin DLC coating despite of its superior hardness and the BAM coating despite of its low friction did not perform at the level that the (AlCrSi/Ti)N coating was able to achieve.

Ecofriendly inclined drilling of carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP)

“…This can also be observed that an inclination of 30°provided highest thrust forces for both 7315 and 7325 grades. As per literature [15], better adhesion between substrate and coating materials resulted in better performance. Another reason for better performance is comparable stiffness of both substrate and coating materials.…”

“…The possible reason of this thrust force behavior can be linked with the poor performance of 7315 grade with TiAlN coating. To support the better performance, possible reason could be better adhesion and similar stiffness between substrate and coating materials as mentioned in literature [15]. -Keeping in view that cutting lip indents CFRP laminates initially, 30°inclination angle was the most difficult among other inclinations; as a result the cutting action in this case provided higher magnitudes of the thrust forces.…”

“…Several studies are available in literature where performance of different cutting tool materials is discussed for CFRP drilling process. Swan et al [15] study the drilling performance of CFRP using uncoated and different coated tools with coatings such as DLC, AlMgB 14 , AlCrN, AlCrSi/ TiN, and Si 3 N 4 . The study examined tool wear and related tool wear mechanisms.…”

The Critical Raw Materials in Cutting Tools for Machining Applications: A Review

“…Many protective coatings against wear and corrosion which may be applied for cutting tools are not considered here due to the huge variety of their types and infinite number of specific tasks; however, some general principles and tendencies were discussed, while more information is available in specialised papers and reviews [7,155,[207][208][209][210][211]. Although chemical vapour deposition and physical vapour deposition are the two main methods of protective coating fabrication, it is suggested to look deeply into thematic papers and reviews to learn about different techniques [212,213] or find details on deposition methods in research papers concerned with specific materials and structures.…”

Effect of Strain Rate on the Deformation Characteristic of AlN Ceramics under Scratching

“…The application of advanced coating materials is of great significance for improving the hardness, thermal stability, service life, and processing efficiency of cutting tools [ 17 , 18 ]. However, the wear of coating of cemented carbide tools is a major problem in engineering [ 19 ]. The scratch test is also an effective method to evaluate the adhesion strength and wear property of hard coating.…”