Effect of Material Thickness and Ultrasonic Machine Parameters on Material Removal Rate While Ultrasonic Machining of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic

Abstract— Drilling is an important process for making and assembling components made from Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP). Various processes like conventional drilling, vibration assisted drilling and ultrasonic assisted drilling have been attempted in order to maintain the integrity of the material and obtain the necessary accuracy in drilling of GFRP. In conventional machining feed rate, tool material and cutting speed are the most influential factor in the machining of GFRP. This paper attempts to show effect of material thickness and ultrasonic machine parameters like amplitude and pressure on material removal rate while ultrasonic machining of glass fiber reinforced plastic.

Keywords— GFRP, Ultrasonic Machining, MRR, Amplitude, Pressure, Design of Experiment.

I. INTRODUCTION

Glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites have been widely used in engineering application such as automotive, aircraft and manufacture of spaceships and sea vehicles’ industries due to their significant advantages over other materials. They provide high specific strength/stiffness, superior corrosion resistance, light weight construction, low thermal conductivity, high fatigue strength, ability to char and resistance to chemical and microbiological attacks. As a consequence of the widening range of applications of GFRP, the machining of these materials has become a very important subject for research [1, 2]. Machining composite materials is a rather complex task owing to their heterogeneity, anisotropy, and high abrasiveness of fibers, and it exhibits considerable problems in drilling process such as delamination, fiber pullout, hole shrinkage, spalling, fuzzing and thermal degradation [3]. High speed machining (HSM) is an outstanding technology capable of improving productivity and lowering production costs in manufacturing companies. Rubio et al. [4] found the effect of high speed in the drilling of glass fiber reinforced plastic. The experimental results indicate that to obtain larger material removal rates associated with minimal delamination, higher spindle speeds should be used when drilling GFRP.
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