Experimental and numerical FEM of woven GFRP composites during drilling

This paper investigates experimentally and numerically the influence of drilling process on the mechanical and thermomechanical behaviors of woven glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite plate. Through the experimental analysis, a CNC machine with cemented carbide drill (point angles phi=118 degrees and 6 mm diameter) was used to drill a woven GFRP laminated squared plate with a length of 36.6 mm and different thicknesses. A produced temperature during drilling "heat affected zone (HAZ)" was measured by two different procedures using thermal IR camera and thermocouples. A thrust force and cutting torque were measured by a Kistler 9272 dynamometer. The delamination factors were evaluated by the image processing technique. Finite element model (FEM) has been developed by using LS-Dyna to simulate the drilling processing and validate the thrust force and torque with those obtained by experimental technique. It is found that, the present finite element model has the capability to predict the force and torque efficiently at various drilling conditions. Numerical parametric analysis is presented to illustrate the influences of the speeding up, coefficient of friction, element type, and mass scaling effects on the calculated thrust force, torque and calculation's cost. It is found that, the cutting time can be adjusted by drilling parameters (feed, speed, and specimen thickness) to control the induced temperature and thus, the force, torque and delamination factor in drilling GFRP composites. The delamination of woven GFRP is accompanied with edge chipping, spalling, and uncut fibers.