Numerical and experimental investigation of the delamination in drilling of the carbon fiber-reinforced plastic composite

During the drilling of the carbon fiber-reinforced plastic composite, delamination causes undesirable defects that degrade the quality of products. Thus, the backup plate has been adapted to the composite drilling to prevent delamination. In this study, we present a method to predict the delamination factor of composite laminate according to the cutting conditions as well as the backup plate condition using FE model. We analyzed the damage generated at the exit surface of the composite laminate, using cohesive zone model with user-defined material model of the Abaqus/Explicit software. Damage behavior was simply simulated and quantified to the delamination factor using the parameter criterion CSDMG. Furthermore, appropriate CSDMG variables were selected to predict the accurate delamination factors considering the backup plate condition. Based on the experiment, the delamination factor was calculated with the computed tomography images of the drilled workpiece to quantify the damage. Delamination factors of prediction results and experimental data were performed. It was observed that the maximum error was 10.1% and 19.6% with and without backup plate condition respectively.