Prediction of a delamination area during drilling of carbon composite laminates structures

The ability to non-destructively monitor and evaluate the delamination damage during a drilling operation is of interest to the scientific and the industrial community. This paper discusses the development of an empirical model that relates the feed rate to the delamination-crack area in order to enable the user determine the appropriate feed rate for an allowable degree of delamination. An acoustic emission system is used to monitor the process and supply the model with insitu parameters for instantaneous process evaluation. It is concluded that the energy response may be used to estimate the value for the drilling time before delamination occurs. The empirical model may also be used to predict the area of delamination at a given feed rate.