Novel orbital drilling and reaming tool for machining holes in carbon fiber–reinforced plastic (CFRP) composite laminates

Carbon fiber–reinforced plastics (CFRPs) have excellent mechanical and physical properties and are widely used to manufacture structural components and skins in aviation and aerospace. Industrial applications impose high requirements on the quality and efficiency of CFRP drilling. However, it is difficult to meet these requirements with conventional methods, such as drilling and orbital drilling. To improve hole processing quality, a novel cutting tool for orbital drilling was proposed in this research. Replacing the end mill in conventional orbital drilling (COD) with this novel cutting tool can enable an orbital drilling and reaming (ODR) machining process, which can suppress defects and reduce the thrust force when machining CFRP composite laminates. The thrust forces, tool wear, cutting temperatures, and hole quality in the ODR process presented in this paper were studied experimentally. The results indicated that machining with the novel ODR tool effectively reduced the thrust force and cutting temperature observed when machining with the general end mill. Moreover, the hole quality and tool life during ODR were exceedingly better than those during COD. The experimental results showed that processing with the novel tool has immense potential to replace existing processing methods for machining holes in CFRP composite laminates.