Development of the cBN Electroplated End-Mill for High Precision Machining of CFRP

Abstract

Abstract Recently, the demand of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been rapidly increased in various fields. In most cases, CFRP products requires a finish machining like cutting or grinding. In the case of an end-milling, burrs and uncut fibers are easy to occur. On the other hand, a precise machined surface and edge will be able to obtain by using the grinding tool. Therefore, this research has been developed a novel the cBN electroplated end-mill that combined end-mill and grinding tool. In this report, the effectiveness of developed tool was investigated. First, the developed tool cut the CFRP with side milling. As the result, the cBN abrasives that were fixed on the outer surface of developed tool did not drop out. Next, the end-milled surface of CFRP was ground with the developed tool under several grinding conditions based on the Design of Experiment. Consequently, the optimum grinding condition that can obtain the sharp edge which does not have burrs and uncut fibers was found. However, surface roughness was not good enough. Thus, an oscillating grinding was applied. In addition, the theoretical surface roughness formula in case using the developed tool was formularized. As the result, the required surface roughness in the airplane field was obtained.