Title: Non-traditional drilling of SiC based ceramic matrix composites: a literature review

Authors: Pengfei Zhang, Qiang Feng, Z.J. Pei, Wenwu Zhang

Addresses: Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Kansas State University, 2037 Durland Hall, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA. ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, #92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300072, China. ' Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Kansas State University, 2037 Durland Hall, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA. ' Laser Processing Lab., Materials Systems Technology, KWC621 GE Global Research, One Research Circle, Schenectady, NY 12309, USA

Abstract: SiC based ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are attractive for applications at high temperatures due to their superior properties. Drilling of these composites is often required for many applications, and very difficult to perform using traditional drilling methods. There are no review papers covering up-to-date literature on drilling of SiC based CMCs. Such review papers would be desirable in order to provide readers with an overview on drilling of SiC based CMCs. This paper reviews the experimental investigations in the literature on several non-traditional drilling processes for these composites up to the year 2009, including abrasive water jet machining, electrical discharge machining (EDM), laser machining (LM), ultrasonic machining (USM), and rotary ultrasonic machining (RUM). For each process, important process parameters and output variables are described. Experimental results about effects of process parameters on output variables are presented. Finally, reported experiments are tabulated to show what has and has not been reported in the literature.

Keywords: abrasive waterjets; AWJ machining; ceramic matrix composite; CMC; electrical discharge machining; EDM; electro-discharge machining; laser machining; LM; rotary ultrasonic machining; RUM; silicon carbide; ultrasonic machining; USM; nontraditional drilling; nontraditional machining; literature review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMM.2011.042193

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials, 2011 Vol.10 No.3, pp.235 - 259

Published online: 30 Dec 2014 *

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