Joint International Conf. on Advanced Materials-2011, ICAM 2011, 19th & 20th Aug.

2011, BTLIT, Blore, India

FINITE ELEMENT MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF DRILLING OF GFRP/CFRP COMPOSITES

S M Mahesh 2R Pramod* 3B N Prashanth 4M E Shashi Kumar 1 Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Don Bosco Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India 2,3,4 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Bangalore, India *Contacting Author : ase.pramod@gmail.com Abstract
In aeronautical and automobile industry, FRP drilling is one of the critical machining processes. Drilling is an essential operation in the assembly of the structural frames of automobiles and aircrafts. The influence of drilling and material variables on thrust force, torque and delamination of GFRP/ CFRP composites has been investigated experimentally. FRP laminates were fabricated using hand layup technique. The materials used in the study are glass /epoxy, carbon /epoxy and glass/ vinyl ester. Drilling was carried out on sensitive drilling machine using HSS drill bit. The process variables chosen for the study include feed rate, spindle speed and drill size (drill diameter). Drilling processes were carried for various combinations of process and material variables. Pre-drilling was also carried out through the pilot hole, mainly to investigate the effect of pre-drilled hole on thrust force. The laminates were modeled as a plate with an inbuilt cylinder at the center of the plate. The composite plate was discretized using 3-D solid hexahedron elements that offer versatility in terms of fiber orientation, stacking sequence, and material properties for the laminate. FEM was employed to predict the deformations, stresses, and strains in the material on the basis of the boundary conditions imposed. The damage around the holes was predicted based on Tsai Wu strength index. Thrust force, torque and delamination factor was found to increase with feed rate and decreased with spindle speed and were found to be the least for low feed and high speed and the highest for high feed and low speed. The value of Tsai-Wu index was found to be the highest for low feed and high speed and the highest for high feed and low speed for both GFRP and CFRP material systems. Thrust force decreased with pilot hole. Thrust force increased with the ratio of pilot hole and the hole nominal diameter. Thrust force was found to the lowest for 2/5 and the highest for 3/3.5 concludes the study. Keywords: GFRP, CFRP, FRP drilling, FEM, delamination.
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1. INTRODUCTION
The use of fiber reinforced composite materials in marine, space, aerospace and automotive industries have grown considerably in recent years because of their unique properties like lightweight, high strength to weight ratio, good corrosive resistance and low thermal expansion [3]. Although FRP components are produced to near-net shape, some secondary machining processes are often needed as it turns out necessary to fulfill the requirements related to

tolerances or assembly needs [14]. Drilling is the critical among several machining processes and it is an essential operation in the assembly of the structural frames of marine, spacecrafts aircrafts and automobiles for fasteners such as rivets, bolts and nuts. Conventional drilling is still the most widely used process in the industries today compared to other methods. As composites are neither homogeneous nor isotropic, drilling raises specific problems that can be related with subsequent damage in the region around the hole. The most frequent defects caused by drilling are delamination,

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fibre pull-out, interlaminar cracking or thermal damages [16]. When drilling of a composite part is considered, results are more dependent on fibre nature than on matrix material [10] Drilling in fiber reinforced thermoset composites results in fiber pullouts, delamination, matrix cracking and thermal damages [15]. Delamination in drilling carbon fiber reinforced plastics using design experiments and inferred that cutting velocity has the highest physical influence on the delamination factor in CFRP laminate for the drills[7].Of all these damages, delamination is the critical. In drilling polymeric composite materials, thrust force has been cited as the cause of delamination by several investigators. The thrust force and torque increased with feed and cutting speed for fiber reinforced composites [1]. Results also indicated that fiber reinforced composites at high feed; the variation of speed had insignificant effect on thrust force whereas at low feed, the thrust force decreased with speed [2]. Torque decreased with speed. Thrust force increases with fiber volume fraction. Thrust force and torque increased with drill diameter [3]. As the cutting speed-feed speed ratio increased, the drilling induced damage around the hole increased. The residual tensile strength initially increased, showed a peak, and then started to decrease inversely with the cutting speed/feed speed ratio. The results clearly indicated that greater the damage the lower the residual tensile strength [11, 12]. Thrust force increased with point angle and web thickness and decreased with helix angle and chisel edge rake angle. On the other hand, torque decreased with point angle, helix angle and chisel edge rake angle and increased with web thickness [4]. The key in solving the problem of delamination lies in reducing the value of thrust force. Further Tool geometry plays an important role in delamination reduction as the value of critical thrust force for delamination onset and propagation will depend on drill bit geometry [5].This is possible only through appropriate selection of process variables that

influence the manufacturing process, which in turn requires optimization [9]. Further it was observed that by vibrating the workpiece during drilling the parameters such as thrust, tool wear, temperature, power and Acoustic emission (RMS value) are very much reduced. Also using special drill like core drills when compared to commercially available tools, like twist drill proves effective in reduction of critical thrust force [19]. Thorough investigation has to be carried out in order to optimize the process variables. Hence, research on FRP drilling has been carried out to investigate the effects of process variables on thrust force and hence delamination [8].

2. EXPERIMENT METHODOLOGY
FRP laminates were fabricated using hand layup technique. The materials used in the study are glass /epoxy, carbon /epoxy and glass/ vinyl ester. The ingredients used to fabricate epoxy composite using hand lay-up technique are Glass/carbon fiber sheet, Epoxy Resin, Hardener, Cutter, Weighing machine, Mylar sheet, and Ceramic tile. After the preparation of the specimen, it was allowed to cure for 24hrs. Fabrication procedure remains the same for Vinyl Ester composites. Instead of adding hardener, promoter, accelerator and catalyst were added. After the preparation of the composites, they were subjected to a thermal post curing process in a hot air oven. First the epoxy composites was subjected to 50 C for 15 minutes, then to a temperature of 70 C for 30 minutes and then for 85 C for 1hour. The thermal curing schedule for vinyl ester specimen was 90 C for 4hrs. The fabricated composites are shown in Fig.1.

3. FRP DRILLING
Experimental trials were carried out in order to investigate the effects of different factors on drilling at different level. Drilling was carried out on sensitive drilling machine using HSS drill bit. The process variables chosen for the

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study include feed rate, spindle speed and drill size (drill diameter). Drilling experiments were conducted for three FRP composite materials, which include Glass epoxy, Carbon epoxy and Glass vinyl Ester. Apart from actual drilling, pre-drilling was also carried out through the pilot hole, mainly to investigate the effect of pre-drilled hole on thrust force.

4. EFFECT OF DRILLING VARIABLES AND MATERIAL ON THRUST FORCE AND TORQUE

4.1. Effect of speed and feed on thrust force and torque The effect of speed and feed on peak thrust force and torque is shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3. From the plots, it is clear that thrust force and torque increases with increase in feed rate and decreases with increase in cutting speed. This is due to the increase of the generated heat assisted by the low coefficient of thermal conductivity and low transition temperature of plastics. The accumulated heat stagnates around tool edge and destroys matrix stability behind tool edge. Also the accumulated heat around the tool edge leads to softening of the polymer matrix, where the softener materials make as a lubricant material, thus reducing the frictional force on the tool margin and moment of the forces of friction of the chip on the drill. As a result, resistance to chip deformation increases and tends to increase the thrust force and torque.

4.3. Effect of fiber type on thrust force and torque. The effect of fiber type on thrust force and torque is shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. The results indicate that thrust force and torque of carbon fiber is higher than that of glass. This is because; strength of carbon fiber is higher, thereby requiring more force for the drill tool to penetrate into the material in order to produce a hole. 4.4. Effect of matrix type on thrust force and torque. The effects of matrix on peak thrust force and peak torque are shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9 respectively. The results indicate that the matrix type has insignificant effect on thrust force and torque. This is because, mechanical properties of Epoxy is almost the same when compared to Vinyl Ester. As the feed rate increases slight matrix crazing is observed and for higher feed rates, matrix effect becomes significant.

5. EFFECT OF DRILLING
VARIABLES AND MATERIALS ON DELAMINATION FACTOR

Maximum diameter of the damage zone was measured using Toolmakers microscope. Delamination factor i.e. the ratio of the maximum diameter of the damage zone and the hole nominal diameter was computed and the results obtained are plotted. 5.1. Effect of speed and feed rate on delamination factor The effect of speed and feed rate on delamination factor is shown in Fig.10. The results indicate that the delamination factor increases with feed and decreases with speed. This is because thrust force increases with feed rate as the drill tool moves along the thickness of the work piece. As the drill approaches the end, the uncut thickness becomes smaller. At some point the loading exceeds the

4.2. Effect of drill diameter on thrust force and torque. The effects of drill diameter and feed rate on peak thrust force and peak torque are shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5. The results indicate that thrust force and torque increase with drill diameter and feed rate. This is due to the increase of the cross sectional area of the undeformed chip. This tends to increase the resistance of chip formation and, consequently, increase the thrust force and torque.

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interlaminar bond strength and delamination occurs. 5.2. Effect of fiber type on delamination factor The influence of fiber type on delamination factor is shown in Fig. 11. The results indicate that the delamination factor for carbon composites is lesser when compared to glass. This is because the interlaminar bond strength of carbon is higher than that of glass and also the critical thrust force value of carbon is more than that of glass. 5.3. Effect of matrix type on delamination factor The effect of matrix on delamination factor is shown in Fig. 12. The results indicate that the matrix type has insignificant effect on delamination factor. This is because the interlaminar shear strength and hence the critical thrust force value of glass epoxy and glass vinyl ester are almost the same. 5.4. Effect of pre-drilled holes (pilot hole) on peak thrust force The effect of pilot hole on peak thrust force and effect of ratio of diameter of pilot hole and nominal hole diameter is shown in Fig.13 and Fig.14 respectively. The results indicate that the thrust force decreases with the presence of a pre-drilled hole. This is due to the avoidance of chisel edge effect. In a twist drill, there is a small region around the center of the chisel edge where the tool does not cut but extrudes the material, called the indentation zone. The main mechanism responsible for delamination is the indentation effect of the drill chisel edge, which pushes aside the material at the center as it penetrates into the hole. Hence, when a hole of diameter equal to or slightly greater than chisel edge is drilled, the thrust caused by the chisel edge is eliminated. Around 15-25% of thrust is reduced with the presence of a predrilled hole. The results indicate that the thrust force increases with ratio. This is because; the minimum diameter to be predrilled should be equal to or slightly greater

than that of chisel edge. If the diameter of the pre-drilled hole is too high (almost equal to the diameter of the actual hole), the parameters of tool geometry of both the holes and hence the thrust force tends to be the same. If the diameter of the pre-drilled hole is too low, the chisel edge effect will not be avoided and hence the thrust caused by the chisel edge gets added up and tends to increase the value of the peak thrust force.

6.

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

In the present study, an initial attempt has been developed to model the drilling process using the concept of finite element approach. The basic aim is to study the influence of thrust force and torque on the drilling-induced damage of GFRP/CFRP composite laminates. The laminates were modeled as a plate with an inbuilt cylinder at the center of the plate. The composite plate is discretized using 3-D solid hexahedron elements that offer versatility in terms of fiber orientation, stacking sequence, and material properties for the laminate. The plate is constrained from the bottom and the edges so that plate bending is minimized in the application of the force. Both thrust force and torque may influence the drilling-induced damage. A static concentrated thrust force acting in the Z direction and cutting force (torque) acting in the - direction was applied. On the basis of this information, GFRP and CFRP laminates are developed using standard software package ANSYS. Orthotropic material properties were specified for the composites as shown in table1. The finite element model was constrained. The model was constrained in all DOF on the four lateral faces and in the z-direction on the bottom face of the model as shown in figure16.1. Thrust force was applied on the cylindrical part of the finite element model in the Z-direction and Torque was applied on the periphery of the cylindrical part in the y direction ( direction) as shown in figure16.

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7.

FEA RESULTS

The damage around the holes was predicted based on Tsai Wu strength index. According Tsai- Wu strength index, the material is assumed to fail when the Tsai-Wu strength index reaches unity. Tsai Wu failure theory considers the interaction of stress components in all the three directions. The value of TsaiWu index was found to be the highest for low feed and high speed and the highest for high feed and low speed for both GFRP and CFRP material systems. FEA has been carried out for several combinations of speed, feed and hole diameters and a few plots are shown in figure.17 to figure.20. 8. CONCLUSIONS

Tsai-Wu index was found to be the highest for low feed and high speed and the highest for high feed and low speed for both GFRP and CFRP material systems. FEA results were validated using the experimental results and were found to be in good agreement. For Glass / Epoxy system the delamination factor corresponding to 0.104 mm/rev, 450 rpm and 2mm diameter was found be 1.381 from experimental results and 1.385 from FEA. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors express their gratitude towards Management of Don Bosco Institute of Technology and Amrita School of Engineering, Bangalore, for their support and encouragement during this research study. REFERENCES [1]. Khashaba, U.A., Delamination in Drilling GFR-Thermoset Composites, ASAT-10, Military Technical College, (2003). [2]. El-Sonbaty, I., Khashaba, U.A., and Machaly, T., Factors affecting the machinability of GFR/Epoxy composites, MEATIP-3, Assiut University, Egypt, Vol.1, PP.203-215, 2002. [3]. El-Sonbaty, I., Khashaba, U.A., and Machaly, T., Factors affecting the machinability of GFR/Epoxy composites, J.Composite Structures, Vol.63, No.3-4, pp. 313-327, 2004. [4]. Chung-Chen Tsao and Wen-Chou Chen, Prediction of the location of delamination in the drilling of composite laminates, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 70, Issues 1-3, Pages 185-189, October 1997. [5]. Luis Miguel Durao, Antonio G. Magalhaes, Joao Manuel R.S.Tavares, and A. Torres Marques, Analyzing objects in images for estimating the delamination influence on load carrying capacity of composite laminates, Electronic Letters on computer Vision and Image Analysis, Vol.7 (2), pp.11-21, 2008.

The FRP laminates were fabricated using hand lay-up technique. The effect of drilling variables on thrust force, torque and delamination factor was investigated. The following conclusions can be drawn from the investigation. Thrust force, torque and delamination factor increased with feed rate and decreased with spindle speed. Thrust force, torque and delamination factor were found to be the least for low feed and high speed and the highest for high feed and low speed. Experimental results indicated that diameter was the only factor that influenced the delamination factor for all the material systems considered. Feed rate was the factor that influenced the thrust force and feed rate and diameter influenced the torque. Interaction effects were found to be insignificant in all the cases. Thrust force decreased with pilot hole. Thrust force increased with the ratio of pilot hole and the hole nominal diameter. Thrust force was found to the lowest for 2/5 and the highest for 3/3.5. FE model was developed using ANSYS and FEA was carried out in order to predict the damage around the holes. Tsai-Wu failure criterion was considered in order to predict the damage. The material was assumed to fail if the value of Tsai-Wu strength index reaches unity. The value of

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[6]. M.A. Azmir, Praveena Nair Sivasankaran, Z. Hamedon, Experimental Study on Drilling Process of CFRP Composite Laminate, Journal Materials Science Forum, Volumes 638 642, Pages 927932, 2009. [7]. Davim J.P. & Pedro Reis, Study of Delamination in drilling Carbon fiber reinforced plastics using Design experiments, Composite Structures, 59, 481-487, 2003. [8]. N S Mohan, A Ramachandra, S M Kulkarni, Influence of Process Parameters on Cutting Force and Torque during Drilling of Glass-Fibre Polyester Reinforced Composites, Proceedings of Fifth International Conference on Composites Science and Technology, American University of Sharjah at Sharjah, 305-310, Feb 2005. [9]. E. Kilickap, Optimization of cutting parameters on delamination based on Taguchi method during drilling of GFRP composite, Expert Systems with Applications, Volume 37, Issue 8, Pages 6116-6122, August 2010. [10]. L.M.P. Duro, M.F.S.F. de Moura and A.T. Marques, Numerical prediction of delamination onset in carbon/epoxy composites drilling, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Volume 75, Issue 9, Pages 2767-2778, June 2008. [11]. Singh, N. Bhatnagar and P. Viswanath, Drilling of uni-directional glass fiber reinforced plastics: Experimental and finite element study, Materials and Design, v 29, n 2, p 546553, 2008. [12]. N. Bhatnagar and I. Singh, Drilling of uni-directional glass fiber reinforced plastic (UD-GFRP) composite laminates, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, v 27, n 9-10, p 870-876, February, 2006.

[13]. Singh, N. Bhatnagar and P. Viswanath, Drilling of uni-directional glass fiber reinforced plastics: Experimental and finite element study, Materials and Design, v 29, n 2, Pages 546-553, 2008, [14]. C.C. Tsao, The effect of pilot hole on delamination when core drill drilling composite materials, International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, Volume 46, Issues 12-13, Pages 1653-1661, October 2006. [15]. H. Hocheng, C.C. Tsao, Effects of special drill bits on drilling-induced delamination of composite materials, International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, Volume 46, Issues 12-13, Pages 1403-1416, October 2006. [16]. Wern CW, Ramulu M, Shukla A. Investigation of Stresses in the Orthogonal Cutting of Fibre-Reinforced Plastics. Experimental Mechanics, 1994, 33-41. [17]. Chen WC., Some experimental investigations in the drilling of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) composite laminates. Int. J. Machine Tools & Manufacture, Vol.37, 10971108, 1997. [18]. Hocheng H, Dharan CKH, Delamination during drilling in composite laminates, J.Engineering for Industry, 112, 236-239, 1990. [19]. Cheng H, Puw HY, On drilling characteristics of fiber reinforced thermo set and thermoplastics, Int J Mach Tools Manufact. 32(4):589592, 1992. [20]. J.Ramkumar, S.K.Malhotra and R.Krishnamurthy, Effect of workpiece vibration on drilling of GFRP laminates, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 152(3), 329-332, 2004.

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Figures and Tables

Glass Epoxy Glass Vinyl Ester Fig.1. Post cured epoxy and vinyl ester composites
70 60

0 .104m m /re v 0 .211m m /re v 0 .315m m /re v

Peak torque (N-cm)

50

40

30

20

10

0 0 500 10 00 1500 2000 2500

s pindle spe ed (r pm)

Fig. 2. Effect of speed and feed rate on peak thrust force

Fig. 3. Effect of speed and feed rate on peak torque

1 00 90 80 70

0.1 04mm/rev 0.2 11mm/rev 0.3 15mm/rev

Peak torque (N-cm)

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Diameter (mm)

Fig. 4. Effect of diameter and feed rate on peak thrust force

Fig. 5. Effect of diameter and feed rate on peak torque

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G la ss /E p o xy C a r b o n /E p o xy

60

Peak torque (N-cm)

50

40

30

20

10

0 0 .0 0 .1 0 .2 0 .3 0 .4 0 .5

F e e d r a t e ( m m /r e v )

Fig. 6. Effect of fiber type on peak thrust force

Fig. 7. Effect of fiber type on peak torque

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70

60

G la ss / E p o xy G la ss / V in yl E s te r

Peak Torque (N-cm)

50

40

30

20

10

0 0 .0 0 .1 0 .2 0 .3 0 .4 0 .5

F e e d ra t e (m m /re v )

Fig. 8.Effect of matrix type on peak thrust force

Fig. 9. Effect of matrix type on peak torque

Fig. 10 Effect of feed rate and speed on delamination factor

Diameter fd matrix

Fig. 11 Effect of fiber type on delamination factor

Fig. 12. Effect of matrix type on (F d ) delamination factor

Fig. 13. Effect of pilot hole on peak thrust force

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Fig. 14. Effect of ratio of diameter of pilot hole and nominal hole diameter

Material Glass Epoxy Carbon Epoxy Ex GPa 53.050 163.55 Ey GPa 53.050 163.55 Ez GPa 8.01 8.38 xy 0.37 0.37 yz 0.27 0.33 zx 0.27 0.33 G xy GPa 2.938 3060 G yz GPa 3080 3150 G zx GPa 3080 3150

Table 1: Material properties considered for FEA

Fig 15: FEA model subjected to Thrust force

Fig 16: FEA model subjected to torque.

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(a) (b) Fig 16.1. Constrained FEA model (a) Four lateral areas (b) Bottom face

Fig 17. Tsai-Wu Plot for 0.104mm/rev feed, 450rpm speed and 2mm diameter Fig 18. Tsai-Wu Plot for 0.104mm/rev feed 852rpm speed and 2mm diameter

Fig 19. Tsai-Wu Plot for 0.104mm/rev feed 1860rpm speed and 2mm diameter

Fig 20. Tsai-Wu Plot for 0.315mm/rev feed 1860rpm speed and 5mm diameter

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