Manufacturing Methods for Composite Graphite Hole Generation

The generation of holes in graphite/epoxy composite materials for the installation of thousands of fasteners is one of the costliest operations in the production of high-performance aircraft. The increasing use of composite materials in aircraft structures has made the development of lower cost manufacturing methods imperative. This paper describes the manufacturing methods, cutting tools, feed rates and speeds developed for reducing the costs of generating high quality holes in composite graphite/epoxy materials.