Correlation Between Acoustic Emission, Thrust and Tool Wear in Drilling

The Acoustic Emission (AE) generated during a drilling process can be used to control the tool wear and therefore the quality of finishing of drilling process at real time, as well as the reduction of time loss due to tool exchange. In this work, steel workpieces were drilled and the AE was evaluated for different states of drill wear. AE signals were correlated with the thrust force. This searching is an attempt to find parameters of AE to assess the degree of tool wear and consequently the quality of finishing of the product. Nine workpieces were drilled with five HSS twist drills containing artificial failures; the thrust and the feed velocity were constant. The specimens were drilled with an industrial milling machine mounted on a mechanical device for measuring the Th. AE and thrust force were recorded simultaneously.