Trepanning Vs Drilling: What Is The Difference?

Trepanning is a machining technique for drilling large diameter holes in materials, particularly where there is a requirement to retain the solid core or when tolerances are not particularly tied up.

Instead of drilling the whole diameter, trepanning only drills an annulus (a ring) around the outside, leaving a core in the centre of the hole that can be reclaimed; solid core drilling, by comparison, would destroy all of the material inside the hole by creating swarf chippings and preventing it from being reused.

Trepanning Vs Drilling: The Advantages Of Trepanning

Trepanning offers several advantages over solid core drilling:

·  Trepanning requires less energy compared to using other types of boring operations. Drilling through hard metals, for example, consumes considerable power and tooling whereas a trepanning tool cuts an annulus, which is quicker and more energy-efficient.

· When working with valuable raw materials, such as titanium, the cylinder that is removed after trepanning can be used in other projects or recycled, meaning less waste and higher cost-efficiency.

· A trepanning tool can be used to part off an outer sleeve of material. For example, it would take numerous passes to remove 200mm from the majority of the length of a ø400mm bar. So, rather than turning for hours to create a flange, and removing a huge amount of material as swarf, it is possible to use one machine process to produce a solid sleeve that can potentially be used again or resold for a higher value than swarf chippings.

·  Trepanning cuts out a cylinder from the area that is drilled, reducing the time taken to clean as there are fewer shavings and debris which drilling tends to produce.

At Drillstar our trepanning service is an excellent alternative to conventional drilling or deep hole boring and as with all our Hone-All’s services, uses only the highest quality tools and equipment.