Hole Drilling With Orbiting Motion for Residual Stress Measurement – Effects of Tool and Hole Diameters

Hole drilling is a very common technique for measuring residual stresses. Adding an orbiting motion of the drill was found to improve hole quality in difficult to drill materials and has been in practice for decades. This study compares measurements using various orbiting amounts. Each measurement was repeated twice to evaluate measurement statistics. There is a distinct, though relatively small, effect of the hole shape when no orbiting is used. It disappears already when the hole is 50% larger than the tool size. Different orbiting amounts also produce systematically different results. These may be related to the absolute hole size.