Ultrasonic Vibration and Cryogenic assisted drilling of Aluminum-CFRP Composite Stack – An innovative approach

The request for more resistant but still light components has focused the manufacturing industry's interest in composite materials. The manufacturing of parts made of composite may require drilling operations; nevertheless, assuring a good hole quality still represents a challenge for these materials. The present work provides, for the first time, a comparison between different drilling technologies, namely ultrasonic drilling and cryogenic drilling, proposing them as alternatives to dry drilling. After drilling, the hole surface quality is characterized in terms of geometrical accuracy and delamination. Results show that innovative cutting methods can significantly improve the drilling performances within a well-defined process parameters window.