Experimental Investigation on Drilling of Fiber Metal Laminates Using Grey Based Taguchi Approach

The drilling of multi-material stacks is a complex task for engineers due to their heterogeneous nature. Delamination is the main surface damage involved during multi-material composites drilling leads to workpiece rejection. In this work, the influence of three distinct drill geometries with different diameters and cutting parameters in the drilling have been assessed through the delamination factor. Machining trials involved drilling of holes on CFRP/Al/CFRP composites according to L27 Taguchi’s orthogonal array (OA) approach using the solid carbide drill tools. Analysis of variance has been used to find the effect, percentage contribution, and significance of the process parameters, namely, cutting speed, feed rate, drill bit type and diameter. The focus of this article is to convey multi-objective optimization of CNC drilling parameters using the Grey-Taguchi method to achieve the minimum response in the machining of multi-material composites used in aircraft industries. The hybrid technique’s effective execution aids in the production of high-quality, defect-free holes.