Title: The delamination effect of drilling and electro-discharge machining on the tensile strength of woven composites as studied by X-ray computed tomography

Authors: Apostolos Korlos; Dimitrios Tzetzis; Gabriel Mansour; Dimitrios Sagris; Constantine David

Addresses: Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Vehicle Engineering Department, Thessaloniki 57400, Greece ' International Hellenic University, Thermi 57001, Greece ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Serres 62124, Greece ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Serres 62124, Greece

Abstract: The presence of stress concentration especially from any induced delamination around a hole causes substantial perturbation of the stress and strain field in the structure under service loads. Therefore, it is of great practical interest to accurately analyse and quantify any delamination and its effect to the load bearing capacity of the structure. Two types of open-hole machining - drilling and electro-discharge machining (EDM) - were applied in order to examine their effect on the tensile strength of carbon/epoxy laminates. Pulse durations of 100 µs 200 µs and 300 µs with a current of 3 A and voltage 100 V were used for the EDM. An X-ray computed tomography (CT) was employed to examine the delaminations; while three delamination factor models provided the measuring quantities for assessment. An infrared thermography was used for monitoring the fracture behaviour of the carbon/epoxy open-hole specimens during tensile testing. A finite element model (FEM) computed the stress concentrations around the holes; while the Whitney-Nuismer point stress criterion employed successfully in order to predict the failure strengths of the laminates. The results indicate that the CT process is a very effective tool for capturing the delaminations from open-hole machining and showed that the 100 µs pulse duration induce lower delaminations; slightly comparable with the ones of the drilling procedure.

Keywords: X-ray CT; computed tomography; delamination; drilling; electro-discharge machining; EDM; polymer composites; carbon fibres; electrical discharge machining; tensile strength; woven composites; stress concentration; load bearing capacity; carbon-epoxy laminates; fracture behaviour; finite element method; FEM; modelling; failure strength; open hole machining.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMM.2016.077712

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials, 2016 Vol.18 No.4, pp.426 - 448

Received: 10 Sep 2015
Accepted: 27 Oct 2015
Published online: 13 Jul 2016 *

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