An examination of the tool life and surface quality during drilling melamine faced chipboard

An analysis of the cutting process and tool wear during machining from metal materials has been the subject of many studies. On the other hand, the tool life when machining from wood materials has not received much attention. Optimisation of the cutting process consists of the appropriate selection of major processing parameters as the cutting depth, feed rate and cutting speed in order to ensure adequate machining accuracy at minimum cost, and appropriate process efficiency. Here, we present the results of experimental tests of wearing drills with carbide blades during processing of melamine faced chipboard (MFC). To evaluate the surface quality of the chipboard the maximum radius and area of delamination around the chipboard blind hole are adopted. These parameters are determined independently at the hole entry and exit. Statistical analysis of results using multifactor analysis of variance was carried out. The tool life of drills depends on many combinations of cutting parameters and the wear of the drill blade. In the drilling process, the value of the thrust force mainly depended on wear of tool flank and the feed rate. The cutting speed has little effect on the amount of thrust force and cutting torque.

Machinability characterization of solid wood with scratching and drilling techniques

This paper describes the characterization of four wood species (alder, oak, jatoba and obeche) with regards to their machinability, i.e. susceptibility to mechanical processing expressed by different machinability indicators. Three types of tests were performed. Drilling tests were conducted on a computer numerical control (CNC) working center as well as on a conventional vertical drilling machine. Both machines were fully instrumented with transducers to continuously measure the torque and the thrust force while drilling. Scratching tests were performed on an instrumented shaper, allowing continuous measurement of the normal and tangential components of the total force applied on a cutter while cutting. This resulted in correlations between particular machinability indicators that were estimated with usage of different measurement benches. Moreover, machinability indicators obtained in this way were compared to the mechanical properties of the wood species. Especially strong correlations were obtained with density or strength in static bending. Those alternative techniques were to some extent coincidental. Particularly, similar results occurred with assessments on CNC machine indicators (torque and thrust force) and friction coefficients (MIε-drilling) during drilling on a conventional drilling machine or indicator C2. The necessity of some improvements in fitting the geometry of an elementary cutter regards to specific properties of solid wood proved in described below experiments should result in higher reliability and usefulness of testing method.