Drilling of medium density fiberboard (MDF) is the most commonly used machining process in the assembly of component parts in furniture manufacturing industries. The quality of drilled hole is greatly influenced by the cutting parameters. The cutting force developed during drilling play a significant role in getting improved quality of drilled surface and reduced tendency of delamination. The objective of this study is finding appropriate optimum cutting conditions of drilling parameters such as spindle speed, feed rate and point angle to minimize the cutting forces to improve the quality of drilled holes. The drilling experiments are planned using Taguchi design of experiments and a response surface model is developed to predict the influence of feed, speed and point angle on cutting forces. The results showed that high spindle speed with low feed rate combination minimizes the cutting force in drilling of pre-laminated MDF panels.

Keywords: Thrust force, Drilling, Medium density fiberboard, Response surface methodology, Taguchi method