An experimental study on the cutting tool performance during milling of carbon fiber reinforced polymer

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) is widely used in aerospace field as an advanced composite material. Recently, more and more studies are focused on milling of CFRP with its increasing applications. In this paper, three different milling tools were chosen, and a systematic analysis on cutting force, surface quality and tool wear has been carried out to evaluate the tools. Experimental results indicate that the multi-flute tool with diamond coating has a better performance than the double spiral compression tool and the multi-tooth tool with AlTiN coating, with a lower cutting force, a better surface quality and a higher tool life than others, which would be a better tool for cutting of CFRP.