SOME STUDIES ON THE DRILLING OF GFRP COMPOSITE MATERIALS WITH HSS TOOL

In the recent years, the reinforced plastics are extensively used in many engineering applications as a substitution for the conventional materials. With an increase demand for composite materials like glass fiber reinforced Plastic (GFRP), carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) and others, the need to drill such products are increasing rapidly. In the present work drilling tests were carried out on GFRP composites with conventional HSS drill bit and then by modifying the drill geometry i.e. grooved cutting edge in order to show the effect of drill geometry on the performance of the drilling of GFRP composite. It is observed that the fiber orientations and drill geometry plays a vital role on the cut quality and delamination. This paper reports the findings in that direction.