Drilling of high quality features in green powder metallurgy components

With the increasing demand for sinter-hardened PM components, there is a growing need to solve the poor machining behaviour that characterizes them. Approaches based on green machining appear promising to reduce machining costs and compete favourably with other shaping processes. Advancements in binder/lubricant technologies have led to the development of high green strength systems that enable green machining of high quality features. This study deals with the drilling of through holes in high green strength PM components. Design of experiments has been used to optimize the drilling parameters as well as tool selection. The usage of optimum cutting conditions led to the generation of holes having excellent geometrical conformance.