CFRPs drilling: Comparison among holes produced by different drilling strategies

The drilling process of CFRPs is the most commonly employed machining operation owing to the need for joining these structures. However, these materials are prone to delaminate during the process and the presence of these defects can be a cause of rejection of these components. Therefore, this paper aims on the study of alternative drilling strategies such as: the orbital and a new drilling strategy (called circular drilling) to reduce the delaminations extension. Holes 8 mm in diameter were obtained by using different drilling strategies and cutting conditions and their influence on the cutting forces and delamination factor was studied