Investigation of Micro-drilling of Aerospace Materials: Modeling and Optimization

Abstract

Micro-drilling is an emerging substantial elimination process in the field of precision manufacturing sectors. So countless challenges are involved in the micro-drilling application for machining aerospace alloys. Moreover, the assisted knowledge of macro-scale machining may not be directly transferable into the micromachining domain. The application of the Micro drilling process is commonly utilized in aviation, marine and insistence because of quality, impervious consumption capacity to withstand a raised temperature. Micro-holes are built-in characteristics in dissimilar micro products. Conventional micro-drilling is having some distinct benefits over other processes. It is a more established process. It may be applied to any material regardless of whether electrically conducting or non-conducting. The main drawback is the less quality of micro-drill bits. There is a chance of accidental breakage of the drill bits. The different engineering process is applied to improve the strength of drill bits. Physical vapour deposition (PVD) coated carbide tools are used due to the more excellent friction less and anti-sticking properties of TiAlN coating. The micro-drilling parameters have been optimized using a design of experiment technique the drilling torque and thrust have been measured. Finite element analysis modelling has been carried out using DEFORM ® software to study the mechanism of chip-formation and to determine torque and thrust. In this work, Mechanical micro-drilling has been supported in aviation materials like Inconel 718 and aluminium alloy (AISI 6061) alloy. The study revealed the influence of the cutting speed, feed, and drill bit diameter on the workpiece surface-enhanced micro-drilling with relation to improved surface finish and decrease of thrust force and torque. Different optimization techniques are also applied for controlling the input process parameters Simulation method of modelling was also used to control torque, thrust, circularity, temperature distribution, and stress, in micro-drilling of Inconel 718 and aluminium alloy (AISI-6061). Several trails are to be booked for experiments conducted for validation of the simulated process. The simulated and experimental results are compared and the results are found to be having a good agreement.