Drilling of Inconel Superalloy: A Numerical Modelling

Abstract

Inconel 718 is a difficult-to-machine superalloy which has the ability to withstand extreme temperature and pressure conditions. Therefore, these alloys are widely used in aerospace industry, pressure vessel etc. Drilling is an important process to be performed in aerospace industry. However, hole making results in amplification of stress concentration. With the wide application of hole making in Inconel, high temperature is generated at the cutting edges due to low thermal conductivity of the material. The current research work attempts to study influence of process parameters viz. cutting speed, feed rate and drill bit radius on performance measures like thrust force, torque and circularity. Here, simulation of drilling process is executed using DEFORM-3D™ software since it provides similar environment as that of actual machining to meet the above objective. From that analysis, it is observed the thrust force increases with the increase in cutting up to intermediate value then starts to decrease while the torque directly increases with the increasing feed rate and drill bit radius. Thrust force directly increases with the increase in feed rate and drill bit radius.