Machinability study of carbon fiber reinforced composite

Abstract

This research aims to develop feasible techniques for machining Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites (CFRP). Fundamental studies on the machining of CFRP were carried out, where the machining parameters namely cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut, were varied. Three types of cutting tool inserts namely, uncoated tungsten carbides, ceramic and cubic boron nitride (CBN), were used to machine two types of specimens, short (discontinuous) and long (continuous) fiber carbon epoxy composites. For short carbon fiber composites, experimental data shows that the tool wear, the surface finish and the cutting force fluctuate with respect to the depth of cut, the feed rate and the cutting speed. However, for long fiber carbon composites, for a fixed material removal rate, the tool wear was minimum when the CFRF composites were machined at lower cutting speeds. In addition, CBN inserts showed superior tool wear properties and better surface finish as compared to tungsten carbide and ceramic inserts.