Influence of Clamping Systems During Drilling Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics

During postprocessing of carbon fiber reinforced plastics, drilling is one of the mostly used machining processes. With increasing complexity of components the requirements on the clamping systems are rising. This paper shows the investigation of drilling tests fordifferent types of clamping positions which are examined regarding their influence on the resulting workpiece quality. The clamping of the planar specimens was realized by 3 and 4 points and by a ring clamping system with variable distances from the drill axis to the fixed points. During the experiments the process forces were measured and the resulting delamination and fiber pullouts at the workpiece surface were determined. The results demonstrate that the distance from the drill axis to the fixed points has a significant influence on the process forces and the achievable workpiece quality.