International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The paper presents an innovative method for joining Al alloy sheets and polymer fibre-reinforced composites by thermal drilling. A proposal for modifying the joint geometry by reverse drilling with a larger diameter tool is presented. The proposed modification demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the failure energy of the resulting joints.

This paper deals with the change of joint geometry of non-ferrous metal sheets and composite plates reinforced with bi-directional glass and carbon fiber by thermal drilling due to the effect of different drilling strategy. Joints formed by direct and sequential drilling were tested. Sequential drilling represents a convenient way to minimize delamination of layered composites during joining.