Effect of tool material on thrust force and delamination in the drilling of coconut leaf sheath fibre reinforced polymer composites

Natural fibre reinforced composites are perceived as preferred material over engineering fibre composites due to their intrinsic properties. Nowadays development of low-cost composites with preferable good mechanical properties is one of the major issues in research areas. The machining of composite materials faces various issues, for example, delamination factor and cutting variables. This paper presents the investigation of factors that impact the thrust force and delamination in the drilling of coconut leaf sheath reinforced composites by considering Taguchi's and ANOVA techniques. The material used for fabricating the composite materials are coconut leaf sheath and phenol formaldehyde resin. It is fabricated by using a hand layup method with 6 mm thickness. An orthogonal array of L9 is implemented and experiments were conducted. The test results have demonstrated that the rate of feed is seen to be more contributing to delamination and thrust force than cutting speed. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International e -Conference on Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering and nanoTechnology.