MICRO-SCALE FIBER CUTTING GEOMETRY PREDICTIONS DURING MILLING OF CARBON FIBER REINFORCED POLYMERS (CFRP) COMPOSITES

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) is a light-weight material with high strength and highly corrosion resistance, and hence is widely applied in aerospace industries. However, milling of CFRP usually generates machining defects (for instance, delamination and pull-out fibres), making processed surface unqualified to meet the requirement of aerospace application. Therefore, prediction for machining quality should be conducted before milling processing to avoid potential loss in massive production. Fracture behaviours of micro-scale fibres and matrix have a significant influence on the final machined surface, and such material removal mechanism can be mainly determined by micro-scale geometrical relationships between carbon fibers and milling teeth. In this paper, a micro-scale geometrical calculation software for CFRP milling is provided based on Dexel model. The software can generate geometrical parameters, for example, cutting angle, cutting length and engagement angle, for the whole milling process. Milling defects and millingforces can be conducted based on those micro-scale geometrical parameters.