CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 61 (2012) 9194

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CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology

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Delamination reduction in drilling composite materials by active backup force

C.C. Tsao a, H. Hocheng (2)b,*, Y.C. Chen b
a
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Ta Hua Institute of Technology, Hsinchu 30740, Taiwan, ROC
b
Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan, ROC

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Composites have been widely employed in various industries due to their outstanding mechanical
Drilling
properties and corrosion resistance. Drilling is an indispensible operation for building a load-carrying
Composite
structure. Delamination, however, is among the serious concerns in drilling composite-based components
Backup force
in practice. This paper describes a novel method for the reduction of delamination during drilling of
composites by active backup force. The applied backup force contributes to suppression of the growth of the
delamination at drilling exit by 6080%. The proposed novel drilling technique reveals the potential for
fabrication of composite components at low cost and minor delamination with high feed rate.
2012 CIRP.

1. Introduction thrust force at the onset of delamination were later developed

The uses of composite materials in structural parts instead of
metal alloys have grown rapidly in various industries due to their
superior properties of high strength-to-weight ratio, high fracture
toughness and excellent corrosion resistance. Recently the
amounts of composite laminates used in both Boeing 787
Dream-liner and Airbus A350 increases signicantly and are over
50% of the whole vehicle weight, respectively [1]. In order to
signicantly reduce manual processing to meet market demand
around 50 million holes per year, Airbus accomplished a major
research project that is automated drilling within the aerospace
giant. This automation, however, should ensure the drilling quality
of composite-based components while minimizing manufacturing
cost and optimizing resources. Amongst all hole-making opera-
tions for joining purpose, mechanical drilling with a drill bit is
conveniently and economically adopted for producing riveted and
bolted joints during assembly operations. However, the defects
and damages, such as delamination, burr, microcracking, swelling,
splintering and ber pullout, are commonly visible after drilling.
The delamination at the entrance and exit planes of workpiece
appears to be the most critical defect, which results in lowering the
bearing strength and requires additional manufacturing operation
to repair for increasing its service life under fatigue loads. Many
references have shown that the thrust force is a major factor
responsible for drilling-induced delamination and it mainly
depends on drill materials, drill geometry and feed rate [29].
Linear elastic fracture mechanics was employed to construct the
analytical model of the drilling-induced delamination. The model
correlates the delamination of composite laminates with drilling
thrust force and composite material properties [10]. Reducing
thrust force at the drill exit in the workpiece was suggested to
avoid delamination. A series of analytical models for special drills
(candle stick drill, saw drill, core drill and step drill) showing the
* Corresponding author.
[11,12]. Hocheng and Tsao summarized the critical thrust force
models of special drill bits for delamination-free drilling of
composite laminates, as well as several non-traditional machining
processes for composite laminates [13]. The results indicate that
making the thrust force low or distributed outward from the drill
center can reduce the delamination. There have been signicant
efforts made to reduce the thrust force from drill bits, while few
references reported the effects of back up method on delamination
in drilling composite materials. Delamination can be reduced by a
support on the back of workpiece to prevent deformation leading
to exit delamination, which is a common practice in the industry.
The nite element analysis showed that a major surface
delamination is unlikely to happen when a backing plate is used,
in the cases of different helix drills under either ambient or
cryogenic conditions [14]. The advantage of the exit backup for saw
drill and core drill at the onset of delamination was later
demonstrated [15]. The effects of passive backup were simulated
[16]. This paper attempts the analysis of the effects of the actively
applied backup force with a magnetic-driven suppressing mechan-
ism at the drill exit in terms of the applied location and magnitude
on delamination in drilling composite material.
2. Analytical approach to delamination reduction by backup
force
2.1. Basic model of drilling thrust-induced delamination
An important experimental nding as shown in Fig. 1 indicates
there exists a critical thrust force during drilling of composite
materials, beyond which delamination occurs [4]. To predict this
critical value is of great theoretical as well as practical interest. For
the latter, a control scheme of the feed rate along the axial
movement of the drill can be developed following the predicted
values of drilling thrust force.
Fig. 2 depicts the physical model of the drilling thrust-induced
delamination in composite materials. The drill pushes the uncut

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cirp.2012.03.036
92 C.C. Tsao et al. / CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 61 (2012) 9194

Fig. 1. Correlation between drilling thrust and delamination extent [4].

Fig. 3. Circular plate model for delamination analysis with active backup force R.

The principle of energy preservation is applied to the analysis of

thrust in association with the active backup force. At the
propagation of delamination, the drill movement of distance
(dX) is associated with the work done by the thrust force (F) to
workpiece, which is used to deect the plate as well as to propagate
the interlaminar crack. The energy balance gives

GIC dA FdX  dU (2)

where dU is the innitesimal strain energy, dA is the increase in the

area of the delamination crack.
The deection and stored strain energy of the circular plate
Fig. 2. Schematics of drilling-induced delamination in composite materials. underneath drill bit are given by plate theory, respectively [17]
( " ! #)
2
laminate to bend downward by the thrust force. The larger the 1 2 b 1 b 2
X F B a2  2R 2b ln 1  2 a2 b (3)
force, the larger is the deformation of laminate underneath the 16pM a 2 a
drill. At a certain level of the thrust force, the interlaminar crack
Z !2
occurs when the interlaminar bonding strength can no longer b 2
d X 1 dX
withhold the bending deformation. The crack propagation is Up M rdr
0 dr 2 r dr
considered major in Mode I fracture. This threshold value is called ( " #)
4
the critical thrust force at the onset of delamination. A theoretical 1 2 b b
FB2 a2  R2 a2 4b ln 2 (4)
analysis yields the critical thrust force [10] 32pM a a

" #
3 1=2
 8GIC Eh
F p
31  n2
where E and n is Youngs Modulus and Poissons ratio of the
material, respectively, GIC is the critical crack propagation energy
per unit area in mode I, and h is the thickness of uncut laminae
under tool.
2.2. Approach of active backup force
Having identied the essential role of thrust force in producing
the delamination in drilling, it is important to control the thrust
force for the reduction of delamination. The approaches of design
of special drill bits were explored [11,12]. An easier attempt has
been the application of a backing plate whenever is possible to
implement in practice. A further development is herewith
proposed to apply an adjustable active backup force, rather than
the passive backing plate, to more accurately counter balance the
push-out action by the drilling thrust force leading to delamination
at the drill exit. Fig. 3 depicts the schematics of delamination
model based on the above-mentioned physical concept with the
application of active backup force (R) exerted by a magnetic-driven
mechanism. b is the radius of the applied ring force of backup. The
center of the circular plate is loaded by a drill of radius c. FB is the
thrust force with active backup, X is the displacement, H is the
workpiece thickness, and a is the extent of delamination. The
isotropic bahavior and pure bending of the laminate are assumed
as the rst approach in this model.
where M = Eh3/12(1  y2) is the exural rigidity of the reinforced
composite material.
(1)
Differentiation of Eqs. (3) and (4) with respect to a and
the subsequent substitution into Eq. (2) yield the critical thrust
force (F B ) with suppressing mechanism at the onset of crack
propagation
s
32GIC M
FB p 2 4
(5)
1  g 2 2g 2 1 j s2  g 2 1 j s4 
where R = gFB, d = b  c = jc is the difference between the radius of
suppressing load (b) and the radius of twist drill (c), and s = c/a. The
comparison of FB* in Eq. (5) and F* in Eq. (1) gives
s
FB 1
(6)
F 1  g 2 2g 2 1 j s2  g 2 1 j s4 
2 4
Fig. 4 depicts the critical thrust force with the active backup
from suppressing mechanism at various levels of g and j. It is seen
that the critical thrust force can be increased with the backup force.
The backup force helps suppress the delamination crack as the drill
approaches the last lamina, hence higher drilling thrust is needed
to propagate the delamination. Namely, when the threshold thrust
force is higher, delamination crack is less likely to occur. Once the
backup force is applied to the level of the drilling thrust, the critical
thrust can be elevated to more than 100% compared to that
without active backup. The drilling can be then conducted at faster
feed rate, hence shorter cycle time and lower manufacturing cost,
with less concerns of delamination. The level of backup force,
however, is limited to about g < 2 in practice by the xture rigidity
 C.C. Tsao et al. / CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 61 (2012) 9194
Fig. 4. Critical thrust force varying with various levels of g and j.
needed for holding the workpiece under drilling. This effect is very
much signicant at large s, namely when the crack propagates far
beyond the drill size. In other words, the larger the backup force is,
the more difcult it is for the delamination to grow further; hence
the drilling-induced delamination defect will be kept at low level.
Regarding the delamination of size less than drill, as pointed out by
Di Paolo et al., it is not of a concern because it is drilled out
afterwards anyway [18]. Fig. 4 also illustrates the critical thrust
force is less changed with the location of backup (j) compared to
the inuence of magnitude of backup force.
3. Experimental analysis
The composite materials were fabricated from the prepreg
woven WFC200 fabric carbon/epoxy using autoclave moulding.
The stacking sequence of the laminates was [0/90]8S. The carbon
ber reinforced plastics (CFRP) laminates were 4 mm thick
consisting of 16 plies with 55% ber volume fraction. Specimens
of 60 mm  60 mm were cut on a water-cooled diamond table saw.
Drilling tests were conducted on a vertical machining center where
the thrust forces were measured with a Kistler 9273 piezoelectric
dynamometer and Kistler 5007 charge ampliers and recorded on
computer.
Fig. 5 illustrates the experimental setup. High-speed-steel twist
drills were used throughout the experiment. All tests were run
without coolant at spindle speed of 1000 rpm and feed rates of 30
120 mm/min. A tubular solenoid electromagnet was mounted to
deliver the suppressing load. It can be readily implemented on the
machine tool table. Once the workpiece is xed on top of this
device, the magnetic-driven backup is activated when the drilling
starts. The backup is turned off when the drilling is completed.
During drilling operation, this device offers active backup force.
Fig. 5. Schematic of experimental setup.
93
Fig. 6. Correlation between active backup force and voltage of electromagnetic
solenoid.
The DC electric voltage of 0 (namely without backup), 10 and 24 V,
and j of 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 were used in this study. Fig. 6 shows the
measured linear correlation between the active backup force and
the supplied voltage from the electromagnetic solenoid.
The ultrasonic C-scan was used for measuring the delamination
on an AIT-5112 unit with 0.025 mm resolution scanning bridge,
AIT-2230 ultrasonic pulse generator/receiver and a digital oscillo-
scope. In this study, a large number of high-contrast images, each
consisting of 150  150 pixels, were obtained from each scanning.
Fig. 7 indicates the thrust force increases with the feed rate as
commonly seen in practice. The application of backup causes an
increase of the drilling force in axial thrust due to the increased
rigidity of the structure underneath drill bit. The closer the backup
is applied to the drill bit, namely smaller j, the more rigid is the
whole structure subject to drilling. This effect is slightly stronger at
higher feed rates; hence the thrust force increases more with active
backup than simple drilling without backup.
The major nding, as shown in Fig. 8, is that the delamination
extent can be reduced by 6080% at high feed rate when the active
backup force is applied, in contrary to the often found increasing
delamination with feed rates when no backup is provided. With
the active backup, the higher the feed rate, the lower the
delamination is. When the backup is applied closer to the drill
bit, j of 0.05, the suppression of delamination is more effective. On
the other hand, when the backup is applied farther, j at 0.1 and 0.2,
its effects are seen stronger at high feed rates at which the
delamination grows farther. Fig. 9 demonstrates the drilling-
induced delamination at exit without and with the active backup,
where Fig. 9(b) shows signicantly reduction of delamination with
the active backup.
Fig. 10 illustrates the effects of delamination reduction appear
already at low level of the active backup force (R = 13 N), with little
difference in use of increased backing force, which is considered
advantageous for implementation of this method in practice.
Namely, low level of electromagnetic power is required for the
method to be effective for reducing delamonation in drilling. The
effect of delamination reduction at low level of the active backup
force may be attributed to the fact of brittle fracture/breakage
Fig. 7. Effects of backup at various location on thrust force.
94 C.C. Tsao et al. / CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 61 (2012) 9194

active backup force in drilling of composite materials is presented

in the current study based on classical elasticity, linear elastic
fracture mechanics and energy conservation principle. The results
reveal that the critical thrust force with the active backup force can
be elevated signicantly than those without backup. In other
words, the application of active backup force can retard the onset
of delamination growth and reduce delamination damage at the
drill exit in the workpiece, in particular at large feed rate when
short cycle time is desired. The experimental ndings verify the
effects of delamination reduction by the use of active backup force.
When the backup is applied closer to the drill bit, the suppression
of delamination is more effective, and a low level of backup force is
sufcient to reduce delamination signicantly.

Acknowledgment
Fig. 8. Effects of active backup at various location on delamination reduction.
This work is partially supported by National Science Council,
Taiwan, ROC, under contract NSC98-2221-E-007-001-MY3 and
NSC100-2221-E-233-005.

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