Meso-scale Modeling of the Drilling of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic: Geometry and Numerical Analysis

This paper discussed the 3D finite element modeling (FEM) of the drilling of uni-directional Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP). Most of the real life parts of CFRP are modeled with single layer shell element and can be modeled as composite by assigning a composite property to it. A Meso-Scale (Laminate Level) approach has been developed to extract displacements, overall stiffness behavior, and detailed stresses and strains. The objective of this study is to implement a ply-based modeling technology to model the laminates and to analyze the interaction mechanisms between the drilling tool and material to validate if the meso-scale approach would be the ideal solution to characterize the drilling induced damage. Results show the model has proved its ability to correctly estimate the thrust force and torque.