During the drilling process, sharp edges of material called burrs are produced and protrude from the original surface. When a through-hole is drilled, burrs form on both the entry and exit surfaces around the hole, requiring expensive deburring operations to be performed in order to meet part specifications. A common hole producing operation in aircraft assembly is drilling holes through multiple sheet metal layers in order to fasten them together. However, at the interface between two layers, burrs form on both the exit of the first layer (termed "skin") and entry of the second layer (termed "frame"). Consequently, the layers frequently need to be taken apart, deburred, and put back together again before being fastened, resulting in additional costs and increased assembly time. The goal of this thesis was to understand the role of key factors such as drill geometry, drill wear and clamping conditions on burr formation at the interface of two thin sheets of 2024-T3 aluminum so that interlayer burr formation could be minimized. This problem was approached from three different angles. First, an experimental study was performed to find the drill geometry parameters for minimization of interlayer burrs and to ascertain the relationship between the average burr size and drill wear. Next, a new kind of clamping system for holding sheet metal layers together during drilling was designed, prototyped, and tested for its effectiveness. Finally, a preliminary analytical model of interlayer burr formation was created in order to better understand the burr formation process in stacked layers of sheet metal and to better understand the effect that each drilling parameter has on the resulting burr size.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-278).

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering. Date: September 2017, Johannesburg / The focus in this research investigation is to investigate the Process Parameter Optimisation in Laser Beam Forming (LBF) process using the 4.4 kW Nd: YAG laser system – Rofin DY 044 to form 200 x 50 x 3 mm3 mild steel - AISI 1008 samples. The laser power P, beam diameter B, scan velocity V, number of scans N, and cooling flow C were the five input parameters of interest in the investigation because of their influence in the final formed product. Taguchi Design of Experiment (DoE) was used for the selection and combination of input parameters for LBF process. The investigation was done experimentally and computationally. Laser Beam Forming (LBF) input parameters were categorised to three different levels, low (L), medium (M), and high (H) laser forming (LBF) parameters to evaluate parameters that yield maximum bending and better surface finish/quality. The conclusion drawn from LBF process is that samples which are LBFormed using low parameter settings had unnoticeable bending and good material surface finishing. On the other hand, samples LBFormed using medium parameters yielded visible bending and non-smooth surface finishing, while samples processed using high LBF parameters yielded maximum bending and more surface roughness than the other two process parameters. / MT2018