Relative Machinability of Wood-Based Boards in the Case of Drilling - Experimental Study

Machinability issues during drilling of wood-based materials were evaluated. Three types of standard wood-based materials of substantially different internal structures, i.e., fibreboards, particle boards, and veneer boards, were selected as test samples. The experiment consisted of drilling holes through samples made of 14 different materials. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the quality of the edges of the holes and to evaluate values of the cutting force and torque. The obtained results were used to determine the relative machinability indexes based on the machining quality and cutting forces. These indexes were defined by referencing the obtained data of each tested material to one selected reference material: medium density fibreboard. The experimental data showed that the machinability index based on the quality criterion was not correlated with the index based on the cutting force criterion. The quality index was not correlated with the basic, routine parameters of wood-based boards. However, the cutting forces index sometimes showed a significant correlation of this type. The quality index showed the influence of the internal structure and homogeneity of the different types of materials.