Milling Behavior Analysis of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Composites

Abstract

In recent years, carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites materials are frequently used in many areas such as aerospace, military, automotive, construction, marine vehicles, wind turbines, motorcycles, bicycles, sport, electrical and household appliances due to superior properties of this material such as high specific strength, high stiffness and high corrosion resistance. While the parts produced with this material are durable and lightweight, the increase in CFRP composite material usage requires the development of processing methods with low cost and high quality. The surface quality in milling of CFRP composite materials is an important issue due to the influence of surface quality of the produced parts on the assemblage. It has also importance on the fatigue resistance of the machined parts. On the other hand, CFRP composite material is seen as one of the hard-to-cut materials due to its low thermal conductivity and abrasive nature. Rapid tool wear occurring during the milling process deteriorates the surface quality, leads to the decline in production due to the machine tool downtime and it thereby causes a cost increase accordingly. Therefore, diamond tools are widely used in machining of CFRP composite material due to their high hardness, while these tools are expensive. In order to overcome the tool cost issue, cemented carbide tools are used to cut CFRP composite material. Although carbide tools have higher toughness than diamond ones, their hardness is low. Therefore, they are commonly protected by a hard coating to increase their surface hardness and wear resistance. However, the tool life and cutting performance of the carbide tools in machining of CFRP material need to be improved. In this study, after investigation the studies on milling process of CFRP composite materials in the current literature, the emerging developments were presented. Cutting tool geometry and materials used in the relevant area are compiled. Tool wear mechanisms that occur during the milling process, the failures in CFRP composite material and the solutions to prevent these failures are discussed.