Deformation Resistance Performance of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Plastic Machined by Controlling Drilling Area Temperature below the Glass Transition Temperature.

Chenping Zhang,Yueke Ming,Yu Xia,Yugang Duan,Xiaohui Zhang,Yansong Zhu

doi:10.3390/ma14061394

Abstract

Drilling of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRPs) is a challenging task in aviation and aerospace field. Damages, which can reduce the strength of the structure, often occur during secondary machining operations due to the applied cutting force and generated heat. The main objective of this study was to investigate the drilling performance and the deformation resistance of CFRPs subjected to cryogenic treatment based on glass transition temperature (Tg). Therefore, a cryogenic machining approach was adopted by fixing the workpiece inside a cryogenic box to drill CFRPs. The machining performance was briefly evaluated. Moreover, a through-hole drilling method was promoted to analyze the mechanism of different deformation mechanical properties. The results showed that the cryogenic machining approach improved the machining performance of CFRPs. Nevertheless, the residual intensity of cryo-treated specimen decreased (about 7.14%) due to the Tg-based viscoelasticity. These results demonstrate the great potential of this approach in advanced industrial applications and further pave the way for efficient secondary machining operation of CFRP components.

Highlights

Carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), which consists of high-strength carbon fibers and matrices, is an excellent structural composite material
The glass transition temperature of CFRPs was obtained by the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) test
MoreThe glass transition temperature of CFRPs was obtained by the DMA test

Summary

Introduction

During the manufacturing of components from CFRPs, a secondary machining operation (turning, milling, drilling, etc.) is usually carried out after curing in order to meet the required tolerances and to manufacture fitting and joining surfaces [6,7,8]. During these machining operations of CFRPs, several damages such as delamination, fiber pull out, and matrix cracking may occur because of their non-homogenous and anisotropic properties and low thermal conductivity [9,10]. Mechanical properties and dimensional accuracy of the CFRP components may be affected by using conventional coolants [15,16,17,18,19,20]

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Results

Conclusion