Delamination in carbon/epoxy plates drilling: tool and feed rate effect

The attractive characteristics of carbon fibre reinforced plastics had their widespread use. In order to join different components, drilling is often necessary. It is known that a drilling process that reduces the drill thrust force can decrease the risk of delamination. In this work, three combinations of the drilling process are compared: tool diameter, tool geometry and feed rate. The parameters studied were: thrust force, delamination extension and mechanical strength of the drilled region-bearing test. This work demonstrates that a proper combination of the drilling variables can contribute to reduce the delamination damage and, consequently, enhance mechanical resistance of the joint.