Abstract
Drilling is an important aspect of materials processing in industry. Conventional drilling methods cannot completely meet production needs. As a result, the emergence of many new processing methods has become a prominent trend in recent years. However, few reports have been published on drilling processes using plasma arc technology. Plasma arc technology has been applied in various engineering fields including welding, thermal cutting, and heat treatment. This study proposes the use of plasma arc technology as a drilling method. A plasma arc drilling system was set up and a number of experiments were carried out. The geometrical characteristics and quality of holes generated using a plasma arc were analyzed. Various hole shapes were obtained by plasma arc drilling; namely, a conical blind hole, a taper hole, a cylinder hole, and a reverse taper hole. Variations in the volume of removed material and the material removal rate (MRR) of plasma arc drilling were investigated. The experimental results have verified that plasma arc drilling is an effective and high-speed drilling method.
