Pre-drilling Effect on Thermal Friction Drilling of Cast Aluminum Alloy Using Thermo-mechanical Finite Element Analysis

Thermal friction drilling is a non-conventional hole making process, which uses a rotating tool to penetrate the workpiece and create a bushing. Friction drilling of brittle cast alloys is likely to result in severe petal forming and radial fracturing. This research investigates the effect of pre-drilling diameter and depth on the produced bushing cracks and petal formations while drilling cast aluminum alloy (A380). A three-dimensional finite element model of high-temperature deformation and large plastic strain is performed by using ABAQUS software. Modeling by using dynamic, temperature-displacement, explicit, as well as the adaptive meshing, element deletion, interior contact, and mass scaling techniques, is necessary to enable the convergence of the solution. The finite element analysis results predict that the pre-drilling has a significant effect on the produced bushing shape. The effect of initial deformation decreases with pre-drilling, leading to fewer cracks and petal formations. Hence, the obtained bushing length increases, so providing a more load-bearing surface that leads to a stiffer joint. Additionally, the effect of pre-drilling on the produced temperature is studied, and the results reveal that by increasing the predrilling diameter or depth the temperature decreases. Therefore, less workpiece material melting occurs, which leads to less adhering on the tool surface, so fewer cracks and petal formations.