Special Issue Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2016, Vol. 8(9) 1–16
Ó The Author(s) 2016
Effect of drilling parameters and tool DOI: 10.1177/1687814016670281
aime.sagepub.com
geometry on drilling performance in
drilling carbon fiber–reinforced plastic/
titanium alloy stacks

Yingying Wei, Qinglong An, Weiwei Ming and Ming Chen

Abstract
An experimental study on drilling of carbon fiber–reinforced plastic/titanium alloy was conducted using three kinds of
drills to investigate the cutting process. This research was mainly focused on the drilling forces, drilling temperatures,
chips, and delamination area with respect to the cutting parameters and tool geometries. One type of tungsten carbide
twist drill and two types of chemical vapor deposition diamond-coated drills which were multi-facet drill and brad spur
drill, respectively, were used in this research. The influence of drilling parameters and tool geometries was analyzed and
the conclusions were drawn that the proper selection of drilling parameters and drill geometries could lead to better
hole quality. Experimental results indicated that the drilling forces and hole quality have a strong connection with feed
rate while the impact of cutting speed is small. Research results also showed that the use of multi-facet drill could reduce
the delamination greatly and thus produced a better surface integrity. Besides, drilling temperature and titanium alloy
chips were studied in this research.

Keywords
Carbon fiber–reinforced plastic/titanium alloy, drilling parameters, drill geometry, drilling force, drilling temperature,
delamination

Date received: 14 August 2015; accepted: 16 August 2016

Academic Editor: Neal Y Lii

Introduction high strength of carbon fibers, CFRPs are highly aniso-

Carbon fiber–reinforced plastics (CFRPs) are widely
used in aeronautic and aerospace engineering owing to
their characteristics of light weight, high specific
strength, high specific stiffness, good fatigue resistance
and corrosion resistance, and designability.1,2 Being the
final link of aircraft structure assembly, drilling is the
most frequently used process in composite materials
machining. In aviation industry, most of CFRP lami-
nates need to be assembled with other components by
riveting and bolt connections, thus making drilling a
necessary processing technique.3 As CFRPs generally
exist in the form of multidirectional layers, with the
characteristics of soft and plastic matrix materials and
tropic materials. As a result of anisotropic characteris-
tics, apart from traditional defects in metal machining
such as dimension error, roundness error, and position
error, there are still specific defects such as delamina-
tion, tearing, and uncut fibers at the drill entrance and
State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of
Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Corresponding author:
Qinglong An, State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration,
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai
200240, China.
Email: qlan@sjtu.edu.cn

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without
further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/
open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
exit in the drilling process. Moreover, fiber pull-out
and matrix degradation can also be observed on the
holes after drilling. These defects in drilling fiber-
reinforced composites may lead to deterioration of the
structure strength as well as poor assembly accuracy.4
Thus, it is hard to control the machining quality in
drilling process of CFRPs. Stacked composites of
CFRP/CFRP, CFRP/Al, and CFRP/Ti are widely used
in aircrafts such as Boeing 787 and Airbus A380.5 In
the final assembly step of aircraft manufacturing, 60%
CFRP components are scrapped for their drilling dela-
mination.6,7 Many authors have proposed that the dela-
mination in carbon/epoxy machining is closely related
to thrust forces which mainly depend on cutting para-
meters and drill geometry.8,9 In drilling process, differ-
ent cutting parameters, such as cutting speed and feed
rate, lead to different thrust forces and torques, hence
affecting the quality of drilling holes.10–12 Therefore,
delamination can be avoided effectively if the cutting
forces generated can be kept lower than the critical
thrust force by optimizing tool geometry and process-
ing techniques, which are essential for achieving high-
quality hole.
In the aspect of tool geometry, E Kilickap13 pro-
posed that the point angle of drill is a significant dela-
mination factor and other machining defects, while
both the delamination and surface roughness increase
with the reduction in point angle from 135° to 118°. AT
Marques et al.14 carried out drilling experiments on
CFRP using four different types of drills (twist drill,
brad drill, dagger drill, and special step drill). Results
show that the special step drill may result in a smaller
thrust force and better processing quality, and drilling
at the cutting speed of 53 m/min and the feed rate of
0.025 mm/rev with a pilot hole contributes to the pre-
vention of delamination. EU Enemuoh et al.15 pre-
sented that the drill with a point angle of 75° produced
minimal delamination among drills with point angle
ranging from 75° to 160°. Studies by W Chen16 sug-
gested that an increase in point angle led to an increase
in thrust force and a decline in torque, while an increase
in helix angle and chisel edge resulted in a decline in
thrust force and torque. An experimental work carried
out by H Hocheng and CC Tsao17 with five distinct
geometries of drills (twist drill, saw drill, candle stick
drill, core drill, and step drill) on carbon fiber–
reinforced composites shows that the core drill has the
highest critical feed rate for inducing delamination,
whereas twist drill has the lowest critical feed rate. AM
Abrao et al.18 conducted an experiment focusing on the
effect of tool geometry on the thrust force and delami-
nation of glass fiber–reinforced plastic (GFRP) drilling.
Results indicated that the ‘‘Brad & Spur’’ drill with two
cutting edges generated smaller thrust force values,
while the drill with three cutting edges produced the
larger thrust force. Furthermore, thrust force increased
with an increase in feed rate, whereas the influence of
cutting speed was small. In addition, it was concluded
that there was no direct relationship between thrust
force and delamination. Investigating the effect of tool
materials and geometries, JP Davim and P Reis19,20
studied the drilling experiments on two kinds of drill
materials and three geometries, that is, helical flute
high-speed steel drill, helical flute carbide twist drill,
and four flute carbide drill. It was concluded that the
carbide drills presented less delamination during drill-
ing and the helical flute twist drill produced less delami-
nation compared to the four flute drill. CC Tsao21
studied the experiments of core-saw drill in CFRP lami-
nates and concluded that feed rate and drilling speed
were the two most important factors affecting thrust
force and delamination, and it was also concluded that
thrust force reduced as the feed rate decreased. R
Zitoune et al.22 carried out the drilling experiments on
CFRP/Al stacks and reported that the influences of
drill diameter and feed rate on chip breaking were big-
ger than the effect of drilling speed owing to increased
cross-sectional area of chips. The spindle speed of
2020 r/min and feed rate of 0.1 mm/rev should be cho-
sen so as to achieve well-broken chips. Furthermore,
feed rate has a greater influence on the circularity and
surface roughness than spindle speed. Studies show that
delamination factor decreases as cutting speed increases
and feed rate decreases.23 Feed rate has a greater effect
on thrust force and push-out delamination in CFRP
drilling.24
A Koplev et al.25 carried out experiment based on
fast tool-off method and proposed that the chip-
forming process of CFRPs was a material fracture pro-
cess. Meanwhile, Koplev clearly pointed out that
CFRP chips were formed by brittle fracture instead of
plastic deformation. Due to its brittleness, the compo-
sites are inclined to induce brittle fracture, therefore
chips produced by the composite materials are discon-
tinuous and always in powder form. As to CFRP/Al
laminate drilling, R Zitoune et al.26 pointed out that
feed rate had a significant impact on the shape of alu-
minum chips which would further affect the machining
quality. Continuous metal chips may produce good
surface quality, while entangled chips lead to damage
on the hole surface of CFRP.
Due to the poor thermal conductivity of CFRP, the
heat is accumulated inside the materials and cannot be
conducted outside in time while drilling. Moreover, the
processing temperature must not exceed glass transition
temperature of resin.3 Besides, owing to the low thermal
conductivity of titanium alloy, the cutting heat pro-
duced in titanium machining is mainly transmitted by
chips and cutting tools.16 BS Rao et al.10 presented that
lower feeds and higher speeds may produce higher drill-
ing temperature because of the low thermal conduction
coefficient and the low transition temperature of
Wei et al.
Table 1. Mechanical properties of CFRP and titanium alloy.
Work material Tensile strength Tensile modulus
(GPa) (GPa)
T800/X850 2.84 168
TC4 0.96 110
CFRP: carbon fiber–reinforced plastic.
Table 2. Tool materials and geometries in the experiment.
Drills Drill tips
CVD: chemical vapor deposition.
composites. AM Abrao et al.18 presented that the incor-
rect selection of tool geometries may lead to a high cut-
ting temperature on account of friction between the
clearance face of tool and the workpiece, and inap-
propriate selection of tool geometries could also result
in higher surface roughness and delamination due to
larger thrust force.
This article investigates the effects of drilling para-
meters and drill geometry on drilling forces and delami-
nation in CFRP/Ti stacks. Moreover, real-time drilling
temperature is measured and studied using a new-
developed device so as to make the temperature be con-
fined below resin glass transition temperature, which
could make a good guidance in CFRP parts
manufacturing.
Materials and methods
In this research, CFRP/Ti stacks were used as experi-
mental materials. The CFRP composites made by hand
lay-up have carbon fibers of T800 and epoxy matrix of
X850, while titanium alloy was TC4 with hardness
value of HRC35; the detailed parameters are shown in
Table 1. The workpiece material size of CFRP
was 300 mm 3 200 mm 3 6 mm, while for titanium
alloy it was 300 mm 3 200 mm 3 3 mm. The drilling
3
Density Elongation Single beam intensity
(g/cm3) (%) (g/1000 m)
1.6 2.0 1030 (24k)
4.5 10 /
Features
Twist carbide drill, 6.35 mm diameter, double
margin, 102.8 mm long, point angle of 120°, and
helix angle of 30°.
CVD diamond–coated multi-facet drill, 6.35 mm
diameter, 91 mm long, double point angle, first
point angle of 130°, second point angle of 60°,
and helix angle of 38°.
CVD diamond–coated brad spur drill, 6.35 mm
diameter, 91 mm long, point angle of 130°, and
helix angle of 38°.
experiment was carried out in a DMU70V machining
center with the maximum spindle speed of 12,000 r/min
and 0.01 mm positioning accuracy. All the experiments
were conducted without coolant liquid. Due to the dif-
ferent mechanical properties of CFRP and titanium
alloy, variable feed technology was applied in this
study. Drills used in this test were tungsten carbide
twist drill and two types of chemical vapor deposition
(CVD) diamond-coated drills which were multi-facet
drill and brad spur drill, respectively, with all 6.35 mm
diameter, as is shown in Table 2. The CFRP/Ti stacks
were fixed at the center of the dynamometer as seen in
Figure 1. In total, 16 sets of drilling parameters were
designed for each drill in this experiment, which are
shown in Table 3. The cutting speed of CFRP drilling
varied from 50 to 140 m/min, while cutting speed of
titanium alloy drilling was from 8 to 26 m/min, and the
feed rate of both CFRP and titanium alloy drilling var-
ied from 0.02 to 0.08 mm/rev. In this experiment, there
were two brand new drills chosen for each type of drill;
each drill was used to drill holes with parameters from
set No. 1 to set No. 16 in Table 3, so each set of para-
meters were applied to drill 2 holes; then 32 holes were
drilled for each type of drill and 96 holes were drilled in
total, and the results achieved from each pair of holes
were averaged to get final force and temperature for
each type of drill under related parameters. And all the
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 1. Experimental set-up.

Table 3. Drilling parameters design in the experimental work for each drill.

No. Cutting speed— Feed rate— Cutting speed— Feed rate—

CFRP (m/min) CFRP (mm/rev) titanium alloy (m/min) titanium alloy (mm/rev)

1 50 0.02 8 0.02
2 0.04 0.04
3 0.06 0.06
4 0.08 0.08
5 80 0.02 14 0.02
6 0.04 0.04
7 0.06 0.06
8 0.08 0.08
9 110 0.02 20 0.02
10 0.04 0.04
11 0.06 0.06
12 0.08 0.08
13 140 0.02 26 0.02
14 0.04 0.04
15 0.06 0.06
16 0.08 0.08

CFRP: carbon fiber–reinforced plastic.

holes had been kept close to center of dynamometer to
guarantee the measurement accuracy of drilling force
and torque. As the drilling parameters for CFRP and
titanium alloy were quite different, the drilling process
had to be interrupted to lift up drills for parameters
changing as soon as drilling out of CFRP.
The drilling forces during machining were measured
with KISTLER9272 dynamometer and delamination
areas were measured by KSI C-mode scanning acoustic
microscope with scanning resolution of 0.1 mm. In
addition, a new kind of temperature detecting device
was developed, as demonstrated in Figure 2. Figure 3
shows the cutting temperature and cutting force mea-
suring system in drilling process. The signal of dynam-
ometer was sent to charge amplifier for pre-processing,
the amplified analog signal was sent to data processing
module for A/D conversion, and then the converted
digital signal was sent to computer for final processing
Wei et al. 5

Figure 2. Cutting temperature measuring device.

Figure 3. Cutting temperature and cutting force measuring system.

6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 4. Fa in function of vc and f for twist drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.
and recording, which can be shown in real time.
Thermoelectric force generated by cutting heat was
measured through two OMEGA-0.3 mm type-K ther-
mocouples which have been pre-buried into drills
through internal coolant holes; these two thermocou-
ples captured real-time temperature of flank face dur-
ing drilling and recorded the data into two storage
modules, respectively, which were located in one spe-
cialized chassis as shown in Figures 2 and 3. The
recorded temperature data could be extracted into
computer later. As there was no coolant hole in twist
drill used in experiment, no temperature had been mea-
sured for drilling process of twist drill.
Results and discussions
Effect of drilling parameters and drill geometry on
drilling forces
The drilling forces (thrust force (Fa) and torque (T)) are
always considered to be a main factor that affects the
machining quality and tool life during CFRP/Ti drill-
ing. In this article, the influence of cutting parameters
(cutting speed (vc) and feed rate (f)) and tool geometry
on drilling forces was investigated using different kinds
of drills. To evaluate the drilling force under same cri-
teria and eliminate influence from CFRP/Ti boundary,
all the values of drilling force were only taken from the
stable interval in each drilling process, which was from
bit wholly engaged till drill tip almost exiting, and the
drilling force values were the average values of these
stable intervals.
Figures 4 and 5 show the influence of cutting speed
and feed rate on thrust force and torque when drilling
CFRP/Ti using twist drill. It can be seen from Figure 4
that the thrust force is mainly affected by feed rate
when drilling CFRP and titanium alloy stacks. It was
observed that the thrust force increases with an increase
in feed rate in both CFRP and titanium alloy drilling
owing to an increase in cutting depth per revolution
and thus the elevated shear area. The smallest thrust
force was obtained at the feed rate of 0.02 mm/rev,
while the biggest thrust force was at the feed rate of
0.08 mm/rev. Nevertheless, cutting speed has little
impact on thrust force in titanium alloy drilling using
twist drill, while the curves were almost coincided with
each other, as shown in Figure 4(b). But as to CFRP,
cutting force increases with elevated cutting speed. This
may illustrate that matrix (resin) softening has not had
much effect on CFRP properties since elevated cutting
speed may cause an increase in cutting temperature as
high friction coefficient of uncoated drill and thus lead
to matrix softening. Because titanium alloy is very hard
to drill, drilling temperature was much higher in tita-
nium alloy drilling compared to CFRP drilling. The
titanium itself and uncoated twist drill were softened at
the same time during drilling process. As it was ana-
lyzed above, cutting force was insensitive to cutting
speed if drilling titanium alloy with uncoated twist drill,
which meant the thermal soften rate was almost the
same between titanium alloy and uncoated twist drill.
In addition, the influence rule of cutting parameters on
torques is similar to the thrust force, that is, torques
decrease gradually with the reduction in feed rate. As
thrust force and torque are the key factors affecting
machining quality of holes in CFRP/Ti drilling, a lower
cutting speed and feed rate should be adopted in stack
drilling process when using twist drill so as to achieve
better processing quality.
With regard to the multi-facet drill, the impact of
feed rate on thrust force and torque was similar to the
twist drill. However, the differences lay in that thrust
Wei et al. 7

Figure 5. Torque in function of vc and f for twist drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.

Figure 6. Fa in function of vc and f for multi-facet drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.

force was almost insensitive to cutting speed in CFRP
drilling, while thrust force and torques decreased with
an increase in cutting speed in titanium drilling, as is
shown in Figures 6 and 7. As multi-facet drill was CVD
diamond coated, the friction coefficient was lower on
cutting face, which could help on lower cutting tem-
perature a bit. Moreover, CVD diamond–coated drill
had better thermal stability compared to uncoated drill,
so sharpness of CVD diamond–coated drill was almost
not affected by cutting speed, which was different than
uncoated twist drill. As mentioned in the analysis of
drilling with uncoated twist drill, the CFRP properties
were not affected too much by cutting temperature. At
the same time, cutting temperature could be even lower
while drilling with CVD diamond–coated drill, and as
shown in Figure 8, cutting temperature even decreased
a bit with elevation of cutting speed. Then, it could be
concluded that CFRP properties were almost not
affected by cutting speed in the drilling process of CVD
diamond–coated multi-facet drill. As to the analysis
above, both CVD diamond–coated drill and CFRP
properties were not affected by cutting speed, so thrust
force was almost insensitive to cutting speed in CFRP
drilling. As shown in Figure 8, cutting temperature
increased with the elevation of cutting speed in titanium
drilling with CVD coated multi-facet drill. As men-
tioned above, titanium would be softened under high
cutting temperature, while CVD diamond–coated drill
was with good thermal stability, so with the elevation
of cutting speed, the thrust force would decrease as tita-
nium got softer. In addition, thrust force and torque
increased almost linearly with the feed rate which
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 7. Torque in function of vc and f for multi-facet drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.

Figure 8. Drilling temperature using multi-facet drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.

validates that feed rates play a dominant role in drilling
force. For brad spur drill, the trend of drilling forces
with feed rate was consistent with multi-facet drill
(Figure 9).
As far as the tool geometry is concerned, the three
kinds of drills present different drilling processes. The
drilling profile with set 10# parameters has been shown
in Figure 10 to further investigate these differences.
Take the classic twist drill for example based on
Figure 10(a), the drills contacted CFRP laminated
plates at point A and thrust force increased with the
drilling process. The thrust force achieved the maxi-
mum when the main cutting edge was involved in drill-
ing process wholly at point B. The thrust force had a
short and continuous decreasing process from point B
to point C due to thinner undeformed chip thickness.
Then, thrust force maintained a stable process between
points C and D. Finally, when the hole was drilled
through completely, the thrust force became zero at
point E.
The curve in Figure 10 shows the variation trend of
thrust force with machining time after fitting through
low pass filtering. As can be seen that the twist drill
produced the largest thrust forces in CFRP and CVD
diamond–coated brad spur drill generated the largest
thrust force in titanium during drilling, which may
bring into larger delamination in composite materials.
Meanwhile, CVD diamond–coated multi-facet drill
Wei et al. 9

Figure 9. Torque in function of vc and f for brad spur drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.

Figure 10. Drilling process using three kinds of drills: (a) CFRP—vc = 110 m/min and f = 0.04 mm/rev, (b) titanium alloy—vc =
20 m/min and f = 0.04 mm/rev, and (c) drilling profile for whole drilling process.
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 11. Drilling temperature using brad spur drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.

produced smooth and the smallest thrust force in Effect of drilling parameters and drill geometry on
both CFRP and titanium drilling, leading to a better drilling temperature
hole surface quality and fewer drilling defects.
Drilling temperatures were measured using a kind of
Consequently, lower thrust force was recorded for the
new-developed cutting temperature measuring device
multi-facet drill in comparison with the other drills.
shown in Figure 2, and the drilling temperature values
Multi-facet drill and brad spur drill could be taken
for each drilling process were the maximum tempera-
as modification types of twist drill, furthermore, multi-
ture recorded for that process. Figures 8 and 11 show
facet drill is multi-flank twist drill and brad spur drill is
the drilling temperatures of multi-facet drill and brad
twist drill with two more drill tips at circular edge.
spur drill in both CFRP and titanium alloy. Due to the
With more flanks, multi-facet drill divides the drilling
lack of internal coolant hole in twist drill, thermocou-
process into several small processes and the point
ples cannot be pre-buried; thus, no drilling temperature
angles were changing between each process, as in our
has been recorded for drilling process with twist drill.
experiment, the drilling process was divided into two
A decrease in CFRP drilling temperature was recorded
steps and point angle was changing from 130° to 60°,
when feed rate was elevated in both multi-facet drill
which made the drilling process more smooth and the
and brad spur drill. This is due to that shear angle
drilling force smaller compared to twist drill with simi-
increases with the elevation of feed rate and thus fric-
lar point angle. Brad spur drill has two more drill tips
tion coefficient decreases; moreover, cutting heat taken
at the circular edge, which is an advantage to cut off
away by chips is elevated with an increase in feed rate.
carbon fiber, so the thrust force could be smaller com-
The effect of cutting speed on drilling temperature of
pared to twist drill with similar point angle, but also as
CFRP was almost negligible. However, drilling tem-
there are two more drill tips, contrary to multi-facet
perature of titanium alloy increased with the elevation
drill, the gradual drilling process of twist drill is inte-
of feed rate and cutting speed on account of the aug-
grated into a more aggressive process, more material is
ment of cutting depth and cutting power. Comparing
engaged into drilling at the same time, so the thrust
the two kinds of cutting tools, multi-facet drill pro-
force of brad spur was much higher than multi-facet
duced lower cutting temperature because of its larger
drill in this experiment, while both of them were with
contact area between cutting tool and materials which
same primary point angle. As to drill isotropic mate-
could give good heat dissipation. However, more mate-
rial, the aggressive drilling could make the thrust force
rials were engaged in drilling process of brad spur drill
from brad spur drill even higher than the similar twist
at the same time, which produced more heat simultane-
drill. However, the two more drill tips do enhance the
ously to increase the temperature. Drilling temperature
cutting ability along the circumference, which makes
should be kept below 170°C in CFRP machining pro-
the torque from brad spur drill lower. Additionally,
cess, since glass transition temperature of epoxy matrix
inconspicuous tool wear was observed after drilling 16
X850 is approximately 170°C. Otherwise, material
holes by each drill.
Wei et al.
Figure 12. Fa in function of vc and f for brad spur drill: (a) CFRP and (b) titanium alloy.
strength decreases and the surface quality declines once
the drilling temperature rises over the limit.
With the elevation of cutting temperature, materials
will be softened, thereby less drilling force could be
observed. But as can be seen from Figures 6(b), 8(b),
11(b), and 12(b), under the same feed rate, drilling force
decreased at higher drilling temperature, but as the
drilling temperature increased with feed rate in titanium
drilling, the thrust force also increased. This phenom-
enon could be explained as below. Under the same feed
rate, the material removed in each revolution was the
same, so the cutting heat generated and thrust force
required in each revolution should be the same if there
was no material softening; as the cutting speed
increased, the cutting heat generated in fixed time inter-
val would increase, but cutting heat conducting out by
workpiece at fixed time interval was almost the same,
so the drilling temperature increased as more cutting
heat accumulated, and the higher drilling temperature
would transmit the heat to nearby titanium and soften
it, which made the nearby titanium to be easily drilled
and resulted in less thrust force in next revolution, and
then reduced the overall thrust force. But under the
same cutting speed, with increase in feed rate, the mate-
rial removed in each revolution would increase, so the
cutting heat generated and thrust force required in each
revolution increased, then the heat accumulated in fixed
time interval increased, which caused high temperature.
There was also material softening caused by extra heat
from more material removal, but the thrust force reduc-
tion by material softening was much smaller than the
thrust force which increased due to more material
removal in each revolution; therefore, the overall cut-
ting force increased with an increase in cutting speed,
along with an increase in cutting temperature.
11
Effect of drilling parameters and drill geometry on
drilling chips
Tables 4 and 5 show the morphology of titanium alloy
chips taken from the CFRP/Ti experiments at various
feed rates and cutting speeds with three kinds of differ-
ent drills. A better chip breaking is required during
CFRP/metal stacks so as to avoid long chips scratching
CFRP hole surface and reducing the quality of hole. It
was concluded that better chip breaking could be
obtained when the feed rate and cutting speed increased
within tested experimental parameters. Most of the
chips produced in this experiment were spiral and tight
winded; when the feed rate was low, for example,
0.02 mm/rev, the shearing section was small and chips
were fine, so chips can be winded easily and long con-
tinuous chips were formed; when feed rate increased,
the shearing section became larger and chips became
wider, so chips were hard to wind due to high stiffness
and they started to break into small spiral pieces under
0.08 mm/rev feed rate. It can be noticed from Table 4
that the chips were winded tightly with higher kinetic
energy with an increase in cutting speed, which could
help in chip breaking, but this effect was not as signifi-
cant as the effect of feed rate. The similar phenomenon
as above has been seen in aluminum drilling in study
by R Zitoune et al.22,26 It was shown in Table 5 that
the chips from multi-facet drill were winded more
straight due to its smaller second point angle. With the
increment of feed rate, the chips from multi-facet drill
formed a spiral tower, so the stiffness of chips increased
which made them easier to break. As brad spur drill
has three drill tips, it is not suitable for chip winding
and chips from brad spur drill were relatively flat,
which made them harder to break.
12
Table 4. Titanium alloy chip morphology using twist drill.
vc (m/min) f (mm/rev)
0.02
14
20
26
Table 5. Titanium alloy chip morphology using three kinds of drills (vc = 20 m/min).
vc (m/min) f (mm/rev)
0.02 0.04
20
From the angle of cutting tool design, chip-breaking
slot of flank face could make the titanium alloy cut off
better during drilling, thereby avoiding chips entangle-
ment. Additionally, the sharp drill tip makes work
materials in the state of shear condition rather than
squeezing condition in order to remove the materials
better. From the aspect of cutting tool materials, high-
strength and wear-resistant materials are preferable.
With the purpose of reducing the friction coefficient
and improving the heat conduction, CVD coated mate-
rials are more suitable for cutting tools.
The feed rates have a larger impact on chip break-
ing due to increased cross-sectional area of chips as
feed rates are elevated, and the cutting speed has a
smaller effect on formation of cutting chips. The
cutting speed of 20–26 m/min and feed rate of
Advances in Mechanical Engineering
0.04 0.06 0.08
0.06 0.08
Twist drill
Multi-facet drill
Brad spur drill
0.06–0.08 mm/rev should be chosen so as to achieve
well-broken chips
Effect of drilling parameters and drill geometry on
delamination
Tables 6–8 show the delamination damage on the
CFRP caused at the drill entrance. Since titanium alloy
could be regarded as backing materials and thus dela-
mination and burr damage at the CFRP exit was small
due to the increased stiffness of CFRP materials, only
delamination damaged at the drill entrance has been
analyzed. Three drill geometries (twist drill, multi-facet
drill, and brad spur drill) were tested at various cutting
speeds and feed rates. In this article, two-dimensional
(2D) delamination factor has been applied to
Wei et al. 13

Table 6. Graphs of the delamination observed in drilling CFRP using twist drill.

vc (m/min) f (mm/rev)
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08

50

80

110

140

CFRP: carbon fiber–reinforced plastic.

Table 7. Graphs of the delamination observed in drilling CFRP using multi-facet drill.

vc (m/min) f (mm/rev)
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08

50

80

110

140

CFRP: carbon fiber–reinforced plastic.

quantitatively evaluate delamination; the delamination
factor can be described as below
Ad
Fd =
Adrill
where Ad is the delamination area of delamination zone
and Adrill is the area of drill.27
As can be seen from Tables 6–8 and Figure 13, feed
rates play the most important role in delamination area
at entrance, while the effect of cutting speeds is small;
the delamination area at entrance increases with an
increase in feed rate, and as to twist drill and brad spur
drill, the delamination area would suddenly increase a
lot after feed rate is over a critical value. And there is
no clear relationship which can be derived from delami-
nation area and cutting speed. The best machining
quality was achieved when the feed rate was 0.02 mm/
ð1Þ
rev and cutting speed was 50 or 80 m/min. Besides,
obvious tearing delamination was not observed during
multi-facet drill machining as its smooth drilling pro-
cess and poor machining quality were obtained when
using brad spur drill for its aggressive drilling process.
Serious tearing delamination was found especially when
feed rates of 0.06 and 0.08 mm/rev are applied to drill-
ing. For the lowest feed rate of 0.02 mm/rev, delamina-
tion at entrance cannot be prevented either.
14 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 13. Delamination factor at entrance under different drilling parameters: (a) twist drill, (b) multi-facet drill, and (c) brad spur
drill.

Table 8. Graphs of the delamination observed in drilling CFRP using brad spur drill.

vc (m/min) f (mm/rev)
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08

50

80

110

140

CFRP: carbon fiber–reinforced plastic.

Wei et al.
Conclusion
In this study, the effects of cutting parameters and tool
geometry on drilling forces, drilling temperature, chips,
and delamination in CFRP/Ti stacks were investigated
using three different drills and various feed rates and
cutting speeds. The conclusions can be drawn as
follows:
1. The drilling force (thrust force and torque) was
affected by drilling parameters, especially the
feed rate. Drilling forces increased with the ele-
vation of feed rate, but had uncertain interactive
relationships with cutting speed. As to uncoated
drill, thrust force which increased with the ele-
vation of cutting speed in CFRP drilling was
almost insensitive to cutting speed in titanium
alloy drilling. However, opposite behavior has
been observed when drilling with coated drills.
2. As to the drilling temperature, it decreased with
elevation of feed rate in CFRP drilling, but it
increased with elevation of feed rate in titanium
drilling. Drilling temperature was almost insen-
sitive to cutting speed in CFRP drilling, whereas
it increased with elevation of cutting speed in
titanium drilling. Compared to brad spur drill,
multi-facet drill produced lower cutting
temperature.
3. Cutting chips in titanium drilling were spiral
and tight winded for all three drills, but the
chips from multi-facet drill were winded more
straight and similar to spiral tower, while the
chips from brad spur drill were relatively flat as
it has three drill tips which made it hard to wind
chips. The chips became wider with elevation of
feed rate due to larger shear section, which made
it easier to break the chips. And with elevation
of cutting speed, chips were winded tightly with
higher kinetic energy, which could help in chip
breaking, but the effect of cutting speed on chip
morphology was much smaller than the effect
from feed rate.
4. Delamination area can be reduced with lower
feed rate and delamination will suddenly
increase a lot after feed rate is over a critical
value. Brad spur drill presented the worst
machining quality among the three drills with
large area of tearing at the feed rates of 0.06
and 0.08 mm/rev and multi-facet drill presented
the smallest delamination area at the feed rates
of 0.02 mm/rev.
5. A new temperature measurement device was
developed and can be used in detecting real-time
cutting temperature within flank face in order
to make the cutting temperature be confined
below glass transition temperature in CFRP
15
drilling, which was 170°C in the experiment.
And the maximum recorded drilling tempera-
ture of multi-facet drill and brad spur drill were
around 110°C and around 125°C, respectively,
in this experiment.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This research is supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 51475298 and No. 51105253).
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