Accuracy estimation in drilling small holes on engineering plastics by a mathematical approach

Engineering plastics have wide applications in different fields of industry due to their light weight and easy shaping. In manufacturing multi-component products, assembly is an inevitable stage and drilling is one of the necessary processes before joining of the components of these products. In this study, two of the most common types of engineering plastics, polyacetal (POM) and cast polyamide (castamide), were drilled with twist drills of 0.5 mm and 1 mm diameters, under different cutting speeds and feeds. In determining the accuracy of the drilled small holes, a mathematical approach was used in which least square circle method was applied and radial error of the each drilled hole was obtained. Thus, the hole accuracy could be determined without measuring equipment such as coordinate measurement machine. It has been seen that POM gave better hole accuracy than cast polyamide due its thermal and tribological properties. The effects of feed and cutting speed on the radial error were also investigated. POM did not show apparent difference in radial error according to the cutting parameters while cast polyamide showed lower radial error in higher feeds with 0.5 mm of drill tool and lower radial error with 1 mm of drill tool. Additionally, the radial error could be reduced with decrease of spindle speed at higher feed.