Drilling of fiber reinforced plastics: A review

The use of polymeric composite materials has increased considerably over the last decade and, as a consequence, the number of papers focused on relevant aspects concerning the machinability of such materials has also increased. The principal aim of this work is to present a literature survey on the machining of composite materials, more specifically on drilling of glass and carbon fibre reinforced plastics. Aspects such as tool materials and geometry, machining parameters and their influence on the thrust force and torque are investigated. Additionally, the quality of the holes produced is also assessed, with special attention paid to the delamination damage. The results indicated that despite the fact that some aspects, such as the effect of cutting parameters and tool geometry on the quality of the hole have been extensively studied over the last years, the phenomena associated to shearing of polymeric composite materials require additional studies in order to allow a better understanding of the behaviour of this category of materials when subjected to cutting.