A study of high-performance plane rake faced twist drills.: Part I: Geometrical analysis and experimental investigation

A study of a modified drill point design with plane rake faces for drilling high-tensile steels is presented. A geometrical analysis has shown that the modified drill point design yields positive normal rake angle on the entire lips and point relieving in the vicinity of the chisel edge. This drill geometry can be expected to reduce the cutting forces and torque, and hence reduce the possible drill breakages when drilling high-tensile steels. An experimental study of drilling an ASSAB 4340 high-tensile steel with 7–13 mm titanium nitride (TiN) coated high-speed steel (HSS) drills has shown that the modified drills can reduce the thrust force by as much as 46.9%, as compared to the conventional twist drills under the corresponding cutting conditions, while the average reduction of torque is 13.2%. Drill-life tests have also been carried out and confirmed the superiority of the modified drills over the conventional twist drills. In some cases, the conventional drills were broken inside the workpiece, while the modified drills performed very well under the same cutting conditions. To mathematically predict the drilling performance and optimise the drilling process using the plane rake faced drills, predictive models for the cutting forces, torque and power will be developed in the second part of this investigation.