Machining Of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics Research Articles

The effects of support plate thickness on the drilling machinability of CFRP

When carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are drilled, delamination damage occurs at the hole entry and exit. An important method to reduce delamination at the hole exit is using a support plate. Therefore, sustainable drilling of CFRP to reduce the delamination damage is promising for modern industries. In this study, the effect of drilling CFRP composite plates using support plates of different thicknesses on thrust force, delamination, and borehole surface quality was experimentally investigated. The results showed that the thrust force increased as the support plate thickness increased at low spindle speed, but the support plate thickness did not significantly affect the thrust force at high spindle speed. While severe delamination damage occurred at the hole exit in the tests without the use of support, delamination damage was significantly reduced in the case of using a support plate. On the other hand, the severity of the damages decreased as the support plate thickness increased, especially unless very high feed rates were chosen. Consequently, the thickness of the support plate considerably influences the damage formation and severeness of the damages is significantly reduced when a support plate with sufficient thickness is used.

Laser EDM Hybrid Micro Machining of CFRP

CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) is a composite material formed using carbon fibers and epoxy resin matrices. It has low productivity and suffers from machining defects during precision machining. Laser machining of CFRP is associated with the problem of heat damage to the epoxy resin. EDM of CFRP can process various shapes with a shaped tool, however it has a lower material removal rate compared to laser, and the non-conductive epoxy resin layer on the surface must be removed before EDM processing. In this study, we have proposed a laser EDM hybrid machining in which CFRP was pre-processed with a laser and then post-processed by EDM. The laser pre-processing conditions were selected by adjusting the laser power and the number of repetitions to minimize thermal damage. According to EDM conditions, the size of the thermal damage area occurring in the epoxy resin, the change in the side gap, and the change in the processing time were investigated. Using the hybrid processing, micro-holes with a diameter of 150 μm were machined, and square-shaped micro-holes were also machined. To improve productivity, a multi-tool capable of processing four square shapes was manufactured, and multi-processing was performed.

Research on CFRP cutting mechanism by the micro-textured tool using macroscopic and microscopic numerical simulations

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) composites are the most widespread advanced composite materials. Still, machining with traditional tools quickly generates defects such as high cutting forces and severe subsurface damage, while micro-textured tools can improve CFRP machining performance. Therefore, to reveal the cutting mechanism of CFRP processing by micro-textured tools and guide the tool design, macroscopic and microscopic orthogonal cutting models were established in this study, which compared and analyzed the material removal process and the indicated topography of unidirectional CFRP with different fiber orientations (0°, 45°, 90°, and 135°) by traditional tools and micro-textured tools, and the accuracy of the models was verified with experiments. Compared with traditional tools, micro-textured tools reduce cutting forces by minimizing the tool-chip contact length to reduce friction and converting the fiber failure form from crush failure to shear failure. Meanwhile, the texture on the rake face enables cutting burrs, effectively improving the surface quality of the workpiece and suppressing the depth of subsurface damage. In addition, the influence of different texture parameters on the machining quality of the workpiece was analyzed.

Bi-directional drilling of CFRPs: From principle to delamination suppression

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRPs) are widely used in aerospace, automotive and other transportation industries because of their excellent material and mechanical properties. Nevertheless, up to now, drilling is still regarded as the most important process in the machining of CFRPs, and the delamination is one of the most challenging damage in drilling process. In this concern, we propose and implement a bi-directional drilling method for CFRPs hole-making. In this paper, the exit delamination formation mechanism was firstly analyzed to clarify the effect of bi-directional drilling on delamination suppression. The critical thrust force was calculated by considering both conventional and bi-directional drilling conditions. Based on the model, it can find that bi-directional drilling process itself can provide support without employing any extra facility. Finally, experimental validation indicates that the calculated critical thrust force showed a reasonable agreement with the experimental results based on conventional and bi-directional drilling. The hole exit delamination damage under the bi-directional drilling reaches the desired suppression effect with a reduction of 11.3%–27.9% compared to conventional drilling based on experiment results. Through an in-depth understanding of critical thrust force, the findings of this paper not only provide a new processing technology for drilling CFRPs, but also open a new avenue to improve the quality of drilling CFRPs by reducing delamination.

Feasibility Study of EDM-Assisted Combined Turning for Unidirectional CFRP

Carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP), which are classified as functional resins, are rapidly replacing conventional materials because of their excellent properties. Typically, they have been used to fabricate components of airplanes or cars. In the field of medicine, the demand for micro-machined products manufactured with lathes is also increasing. However, owing to the significant tool wear caused by the carbon fiber, CFRP machining can result in burrs and inaccuracies in the finished product. The tool wear caused by carbon fiber must be reduced to ensure high dimensional accuracy. In this study, the possibility of combining conventional turning with electric current or electrical discharge machining was explored.

MODELING AND MULTI-RESPONSE OPTIMIZATION OF ABRASIVE WATER JET MACHINING USING ANN COUPLED WITH NSGA-II

This paper aims to develop a predictive model and optimize the performance of the abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) during machining of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) epoxy laminates composite through a unique approach of artificial neural network (ANN) linked with the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II). Initially, 80 AWJM experimental runs were carried out to generate the data set to train and test the ANN model. During the experimentation, the stand-off distance (SOD), water pressure, traverse speed and abrasive mass flow rate (AMFR) were selected as input AWJM variables and the average surface roughness and kerf width were considered as response variables. The established ANN model predicted the response variable with mean square error of 0.0027. Finally, the ANN coupled NSGA-II algorithm was applied to determine the optimum AWJM input parameters combinations based on multiple objectives.

Investigation of Optimum Grinding Condition Using cBN Electroplated End-Mill for CFRP Machining

Recently, carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) have been used in various applications such as airplanes and automobiles. In CFRP molding, there are unnecessary portions on the outer area. Therefore, a machining process is required to remove them. Cutting and grinding are conventionally used in the finish machining of CFRPs. End-milling allows the removal of most of these portions. However, uncut fibers easily occur during end-milling. In contrast, a precise machined surface and edge are easily obtained using a grinding tool. Therefore, this research has developed a novel cubic boron nitride (cBN) electroplated end-mill that combines an end-mill and a grinding tool. This is a versatile tool that can cut and grind CFRPs by changing the direction of rotation of the tool. In this study, the effectiveness of the developed tool is investigated. First, the developed tool machined the CFRP by side milling. Consequently, cBN abrasives that were fixed on the outer surface of the developed tool did not detach in certain cutting conditions. Next, in order to generate a sharp edge on the CFRP and restrict the increase in the CFRP temperature with the cBN electroplated end-mill, the optimum abrasive size and grinding condition were investigated through the design of experiments. Moreover, the effectiveness of the developed tool was verified by comparing it with a conventional tool. As a result, smaller burrs and uncut fibers were observed after final machining with the developed tool under the derived optimum condition than those with conventional tools. However, the desired surface roughness could not be achieved as required by the airline industry. Therefore, oscillating grinding was applied. In addition, the formula of the theoretical surface roughness while using the developed tool was derived using the theory of slant grinding. As a result, the oscillating condition that led to the required surface roughness was obtained by theoretical analysis. In addition, the required value for the airline industry was achieved by oscillating grinding.

Effect of cooling strategies on performance and mechanism of helical milling of CFRP/Ti-6Al-4 V stacks

Hole-making for Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP)/Ti-6Al-4 V stacks is crucial for the assembling strength of aircraft structure parts. This work carried out experimental work for helical milling (HM) of the stacks with sustainable cooling/lubrication (dry, MQL and cryogenic) conditions. Cutting forces and temperatures at the CFRP layer, Ti-6Al-4 V layer and the interface of stacks were obtained by a developed measuring system. The temperatures in CFRP machining at cryogenic condition varied from −167 °C to −94 °C, which were much lower than those at dry and MQL conditions. The maximum temperature near the interface of stacks for the ninth hole was higher than 240 °C due to heat conduction from Ti-6Al-4 V layer. The hole quality, hole diameter and tool wear mechanism at different cooling/lubrication conditions were presented and discussed. MQL condition generated mainly extrusion fracture for the fibers, due to the reduced friction effect compared with dry condition. MQL was helpful to reduce the feed mark at the hole surface of Ti-6Al-4 V alloy. The flank wear of cutting edge at MQL condition was better than those at dry and cryogenic conditions. Cryogenic cooling contributed to better CFRP surface with smaller delamination and hole entrance damage due to the increased resin strength and fiber brittleness. The damage near the entrance of CFRP were analyzed by the contact state of cutting edges and fibers. Additionally, hole diameters near the exit of CFPR layer were larger than other test positions. This work provided feasible processes for improving hole quality and tool life in hole-making of CFRP/Ti-6Al-4 V stacks.

Drilling Process on CFRP: Multi-Criteria Decision-Making with Entropy Weight Using Grey-TOPSIS Method

Moisture strongly affects the quality and mechanical specificity of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) when using lubrication fluids during machining, and the significant impact of the cutting tool geometry and cryogenic gas cooling on CFRP machining capabilities are observed. The main body of this paper aims at making decisions about the optimum parameter of the drilling process while machining on CFRP base on the grey relational coefficient embed to the technique for order of preference by similarity to an ideal solution (Grey-TOPSIS). The entropy method was used to determine the weight of decision-making for handling a multiple measure decision-making response. The twist angle of the tool drill, lubrication, and feed rate were used as the input variables, and were analyzed while taking into account several multi-response outputs, such as the surface roughness, uncut fiber, and delamination. The result showed that a feed rate of 228 mm/min, the high-helix twist angle, and cryogenic CO2 lubrication leads the calculated value to close the relative value, which minimizes the value of the surface roughness, the uncut fiber, and the delamination. Finally, verification of the valid effect of each parameter process was conducted using analysis of variance. The results indicated that the lubrication was the highest remarkable criterion on the uncut fiber, the delamination, and the surface roughness. By integrating the advantage of grey systems theory, and the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution, to evaluate and optimize the machining parameter, the results indicate that the proposed model is useful to facilitate the multi-criteria decision-making problem under the environment of uncertainty and vagueness. This relatively advanced approach is very effectual in rejecting process variation and a great assistive strategy than other multi-criteria decision-making approaches.

The effects of elliptical ultrasonic vibration in surface machining of CFRP composites using rotary ultrasonic machining

Compared with conventional surface grinding (CSG) process, surface machining of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites using rotary ultrasonic machining (RUM) with vertical ultrasonic vibration generates smaller cutting forces because of improved machining performance and more damages to the machined CFRP surface due to the intermittent knocking induced by vertical ultrasonic vibration. It is reported that surface quality can be improved when the ultrasonic vibration is parallel to the feeding direction. In addition, elliptical ultrasonic vibration can be formed by the combination of horizontal and vertical ultrasonic vibrations. However, the effects of elliptical ultrasonic vibration in RUM surface machining of CFRPs are still unknown. This paper will study the influences of elliptical ultrasonic vibration on the machining performance and machined surface quality in RUM surface machining of CFRPs. The comparisons of output variables (including cutting forces, surface roughness, and machined surface topography) between RUM surface machining with elliptical ultrasonic vibration and the CSG process as well as RUM surface machining with vertical ultrasonic vibration will be conducted under different levels of input variables (including depth of cut, feedrate, and tool rotation speed). The abrasive-grain trajectory and the tool-workpiece contacting modes in these three machining processes are analyzed. It is found that RUM surface machining with elliptical ultrasonic vibration produced smallest feeding-direction cutting force, smallest vertical-direction cutting force, best morphology of machined surface, and smallest surface roughness among these three kinds of machining processes.

Delamination formation and suppression during rotary ultrasonic elliptical machining of CFRP

As a superior hole manufacturing process, rotary ultrasonic elliptical machining (RUEM) has been successfully employed for drilling carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) recently. The delamination of CFRP during drilling is generally considered as the most undesirable form of damage and the most challenging failure mode. In order to reduce the delamination in this novel process, it is important to understand the formation and suppression mechanisms during RUEM of CFRP. In this study, the delamination formation in both core drilling (CD) and RUEM was observed and analyzed. The variation trend of delamination factor with feed speed as well as cutting speed was obtained. The experimental results show that, compared with CD, RUEM method can effectively reduce hole exit delamination by 5.4%–19.3% between 1/2 plies and 0.7%–8.4% between 2/3 plies at the feed rates from 50 to 100 μm/rev. Moreover, the delamination suppression mechanism in RUEM was fully analyzed and verified. In a word, in the industry practice, RUEM can be considered as a competitive and promising technique to drill CFRP compared to other delamination suppression techniques.

복합재료 드릴가공 온도 변화에 따른 절삭특성

The Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic(CFRP) is used in many industrial areas owing to its excellent specific strength. In order to be utilized for machine parts, it is needed to have the hole drilling machining that presents the excellent surface. For the excellent hole machining of CFRP, this study evaluated the cutting force and remaining burr in accordance with changes in temperature by cooling down the temperature of the machining part. It could be used for other machining of composite materials produced by laminating fabric.

Effects of Nano Organoclay and Wax on the Machining Temperature and Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP)

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are appreciated for their high mechanical properties and lightness. Due to their heterogeneous nature, CFRP machining remains delicate. Damages are caused on the material and early tool wear occurs. The present study aims to evaluate the effects of fillers on CFRP machinability and mechanical behavior. CFRP laminates were fabricated by the vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process, using a modified epoxy resin. Three fillers (organoclay, hydrocarbon wax, and wetting agent) were mixed with the resin prior to the laminate infusion. Milling tests were performed with polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tools, equipped with thermocouples on their teeth. Machinability was then studied through the cutting temperatures and forces. Tensile, flexural, and short-beam tests were carried out on all samples to investigate the effects of fillers on mechanical properties. Fillers, especially wax, allowed us to observe an improvement in machinability. The best improvement was observed with 1% wax and 2% organoclay, which allowed a significant decrease in the cutting forces and the temperatures, and no deteriorations were seen on mechanical properties. These results demonstrate that upgrades to CFRP machining through the addition of nanoclays and wax is a path to explore.

Effects of machining conditions on the hole wall delamination in both conventional and ultrasonic-assisted CFRP drilling

The need of carbon fiber–reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been driven by the increasingly wide applications in many industrials including sports, transportation, and energy. However, until now, the poor machinability of CFRP can be still considered the key problem and the most urgent machining-induced issue can be the delamination damage in the drilling process. Although many efforts have been paid to investigate this topic, most of them investigated the delamination at either the hole entrance and the exit. Very few of these studies focused on the internal delamination defects on the hole wall, although these internal defects can be as important as the entrance and exit defects. To fill this gap, this paper investigated the condition effects (feed rate, spindle speed, ultrasonic vibration of drills, and the workpiece support strategy) on the delamination in CFRP drilling, with the special focus on the internal delamination damage on the inside hole walls. Based on both the experimental and theoretical analysis, the effectiveness of the back supports and the variable feed rates was investigated as well. Considering few published studies reported the delamination on the hole wall, the key findings in this paper are expected to be meaningful to deepen the understanding of CFRP drilling and helpful to provide some industrial guidance.

Scratching-induced surface characteristics and material removal mechanisms in rotary ultrasonic surface machining of CFRP

Rotary ultrasonic machining has been successfully explored in surface machining of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites. It has been proven to be an effective and efficient CFRP machining method. Both theoretical and experimental investigations have been conducted with the assumption that the CFRP is removed by brittle fracture removal mode. However, in brittle material machining, ductile flow phenomenon still exists. Ductile scratching marks are also observed on the machined CFRP surfaces. It is still unknown that what actual material removal modes are under different machining variables. To investigate the material removal mechanisms in rotary ultrasonic surface machining (RUSM) of CFRP, single abrasive scratching tests were conducted. The scratching induced characteristics and scratching forces were analyzed. Both the ductile removal mode and the brittle fracture removal mode were observed and identified in both carbon fiber layers and epoxy resin layers on the machined marks by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. With the increase of scratching depth, the material removal mode of CFRP was changed from the ductile removal mode to the brittle fracture mode. From the analysis of kinematic trajectory of diamond grain, the scratching cutting forces were decreased in the tests with the assistance of ultrasonic vibration under the same machining variables. The generation mechanisms of the delamination were analyzed and discussed.

High precision laser macrodrilling of carbon fiber reinforced plastics with a new nanosecond pulsed laser—Optimized toward industrial needs

Due to their outstanding strength-to-weight ratio, carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are of high interest for lightweight construction. Within industrial fields requiring lightweight design and energy efficiency, the demand for CFRP increases continuously. Until now, machining of CFRP, as a crucial step in the production chain of composite parts, is mainly performed by conventional techniques such as drilling, milling, and abrasive water jet cutting. These techniques come with known drawbacks, including force input, handling of auxiliaries, and tool wear. The laser cutting of CFRP has already shown its high potential to be a practical alternative due to wear-free and contactless processing. However, if sufficient cutting rates are required, laser cutting has to overcome the challenge of either nonorthogonal cutting edges when using short pulsed high power lasers or heat input into the material when using continuously emitting (continuous wave) high power singlemode laser sources, as shown by Staehr et al. [J. Laser Appl. 28, 022203 (2016)]. Within this investigation, the machining with a novel short pulsed high power laser source by Trumpf Laser GmbH emitting at λ = 1030 nm will be examined. The lab-state laser source provides nanosecond pulses at tp = 20 ns, at a maximum pulse energy of Ep = 100 mJ, and a maximum average power of Pavg = 1.5 kW, while maintaining a very good beam quality allowing for small focus diameters down to df = 84 μm with the focusing optics used. It was shown that processing with small focus diameters results in narrow cutting kerfs contributing to the cutting edge angle. In addition, the investigations revealed a minimized thermal load resulting from the short pulses. At the same time, challenges resulting from shielding effects when specific parameters are used will be displayed and discussed. Different processing strategies for adjusting the cutting edge angle toward orthogonality will be presented in this paper. This optimization procedure aims at the drilling of macroscopic holes with a diameter of Ø > 4 mm in CFRP laminates with a thickness of s ≥ 2 mm at very high precision.

A study of abrasive waterjet multi-pass cutting on kerf quality of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics

Carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRPs) used extensively in the aerospace and automobile industries pose a challenge into machining techniques because of their hard-machine property. Abrasive waterjet (AWJ) as an emerging technology has been certified as the effective technology to machine such materials, especially for AWJ cutting. In order to further improve the cutting kerf quality without sacrifice of efficiency, this paper is aimed to originally investigate CFRP cutting using multi-pass process with changed parameters among different passes, which is indeed absent in previous works. At first, the material removal mechanism by AWJ multi-pass cutting was discussed to explore the delamination mechanism related to removal material behaviors and to certify that multi-pass cutting can be applied into CFRP machining. The micro-machining including microcutting, plow, and brittle fracture of fibers and matrix was prime material removal mechanism, and the inter-laminar delamination occurring at exit zone was related to the dominant removal mechanism of brittle fracture of fibers, which was influenced heavily by parameters selected. Secondly, the kerf quality produced by the multi-pass cutting with changed parameters and constant parameters is comparatively analyzed. The former could further reduce 53% of kerf taper and improve efficiency 13% as appropriate parameters selected without sacrifice of kerf quality. Regarding the surface quality in smooth cutting zone (SCZ), the former did not show an advantage over the later unless highly increasing pressure at second-pass cutting. It was also induced from experimental results that arranging the low traverse speed at first-pass cutting was superior to it at second-pass cutting.

Chip Formation Mechanism in Machining of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic

Machining of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) is still a challenging due to its inhomogeneous and anisotropic properties, which often lead to damage such as the delamination and the fiber pullout. The chip formation mechanism in machining of CFRP is completely different from the mechanism in metal cutting. In this paper, a two-dimensional macro equivalent homogeneous finite element model is established to simulate the dynamic cutting processes of unidirectional CFRP (UD-CFRP). The anisotropic material constitutive, the initial failure criterion and the damage evolution rule are defined in this model to investigate the material responses under the cutting load. Furthermore, the specific stiffness degradation variables are set to calculate the residual stiffness in cutting process. Failure mechanisms in chip formation in machining of CFRP for 0°, 45°, 90°and 135° fiber orientations are investigated by this model. And the effect of rake angle and the depth of cut on the chip formation are also analyzed. Cutting experiments of CFRP are obtained to observe the chipping process by microscopic observation accordingly. Finally, the chip formation mechanisms in machining of CFRP are summarized as the debonding-bending type and the cutting type. There is serious sub-surface damage in machining of CFRP for 135° fiber orientation.

Process Forces Analysis and a New Feed Control Strategy for Drilling of Unidirectional Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (UD-CFRP)

Reliable machining of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) is the key for application of these lightweight materials. Due to its anisotropy, CFRP is a very difficult material to machine because of occurring delamination and fiber-pullouts. The tool design is especially crucial to minimize and to avoid these processing errors. In this paper a process analysis for drilling is shown for better understanding of the chip formation. Drilling of unidirectional CFRP enables the investigation of the effect of fiber orientation on the chip formation process. In theory, the amount of cut fibers and the cutting angle to the main cutting edge determine the cutting force. Experimental tests with varied macroscopic drill geometries verify this theory. Based on these detected relationships, the tool loads can be calculated for a successful tool design.

Combined influences of tool shape and as-deposited diamond film on cutting performance of drills for CFRP machining

When drilling the carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP), the tool shape and surface coating both play important roles in the cutting performance, which are complex and comprehensive, and should be systematically studied. In this research, WC-6wt.%Co drills in typical shapes are prepared, on which high-performance composite diamond films are deposited by the hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) method. It is firstly proved by drilling tests that the tool shape always acts as a determining factor that significantly influences the drilling force and machining quality, for either the uncoated or diamond coated drills. The shorter chisel edge, smaller actual point angle and the proper double point angles are all factors in their favor. By contrast, as-deposited diamond films can slightly reduce the drilling force, while sometimes it even deteriorates the hole quality, due to the edge roundness caused by the alkali-acid pretreatment and the film growth. However, the diamond films play critical roles in improving the wear resistance, elongating the lifetime and guaranteeing the stability of the machining quality in the long-duration drilling process. In addition, the tool lifetime is also closely associated with the tool shape, attributed to the different thrust forces, consequently the lifetime of the diamond coated standard twist drill is much shorter than those of all other coated ones.