Trochoid milling of carbon fibre-reinforced plastics (CFRP)

Carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) has good specific mechanical properties, it is, therefore, an often used structural material in the high-tech industries. Due to the anisotropy and inhomogeneity of CFRP, the machining properties are highly depending on the cutting directions. Based on previous experimental works, a new trochoid tool patch was developed in order to minimise cutting force and uncut fibres when milling unidirectional CFRP. The main objective of the present work is to test and analyse the effect of the special trochoid milling technology on the quality parameters (surface roughness and characteristics of uncut fibres) of machined unidirectional CFRP specimens. The machining experiments were analysed using digital image processing (DIP) method. The influence of the chosen independent variables (cutting tool and tool patch) were analysed at fixed process parameters (cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut). It was found that the quality of the machined edge is better when the new trochoid milling technology is applied.