Investigation of milling characteristics in graphene-embedded epoxy/carbon fibre reinforced composite

Abstract

Carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) is used in the manufacturing sector due to its better properties like specific strength and toughness, low vibration damping and low thermal expansion coefficient. Industries like automobile, aerospace and defence have many application of CFRP. Composition distributed with graphene has been broadly perceived to get excellent thermal, mechanical and electrical properties. Graphene has better properties such as high surface area, tensile strength, electrical conductivity, aspect ratio and shielding ability of electromagnetic interference as nanofiller. Machining of composite material is not easy due to anisotropic nature. In this work, milling was done on neat and graphene doped CFRP laminate to check the effects of machining parameter like spindle speed and feed rate. Carbide end milling tool having 6 mm diameter with four flutes was used for the machining process. Taguchi design of experiment was used along with grey relational analysis to optimize the cutting parameter for minimum delamination factor and better surface finish. Lower feed rate and higher spindle speed were favourable for minimum surface roughness while lower feed rate and spindle speed were favourable for minimum delamination factor in both neat as well as graphene doped CFRP laminate.