OPTIMISATION OF DRILLING CHARACTERISTICS OF ALUMINIUM-SILICON CARBIDE PARTICULATE COMPOSITES

In the present work an attempt has been made to study the drilling characteristics of Aluminium Silicon carbide particulate composites. The composites manufactured through stir casting technique for different volume fraction of SiC was machined with solid carbide drills. The various drilling characteristics studied were drill wear, specific power, surface roughness and hole accuracy. The parameters considered for the study were volume fraction of SiC in composites, speed, feed rate and diameter of the drill. The experimental results were used to develop mathematical models for the different characteristics containing linear, quadratic and interactive effects of the parameters considered. The adequacy of the models developed models were checked using F- test and the insignificant effects were eliminated using t- test. The models developed were then subjected to optimization using non-linear programming for minimizing the drill wear. The models can be used for predicting the drilling characteristics and the optimized drilling conditions can be used for achieving better quality in drilling Al/SiCp composites.