Search Results

Aircraft design has mainly changed in the past years, introducing new materials such as CFRP at a large scale. Even if this great change brought many advantages: weight, sustainability, reliability… it upset the way to produce basic parts and to assembly. A special difficulty lies in drilling multiple stacks made of different materials, i.e. metal (aluminum, titanium, stainless steel) + CFPR. Indeed, as the process has to drill through those stacks during a unique operation, cutting conditions and tool technologies are a compromise. As a consequence, tool life cycle, productivity and above all, hole quality are no longer optimum. Some materials, such as titanium requires low cutting speed and high feed rate whereas CFRP requires opposite trends. Moreover, heat generated by cutting metal (especially titanium) can damage CFRP when overheated metallic chips pass through.