International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Experimental Study on Edge Trimming of

Unidirectional CFRP Composites
R.Prakash

V.Krishnaraj

Assistant professor (Sr.G),

Department of Mechanical Engineering,
PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore-641004, Tamilnadu, India.
rprakash.psg@gmail.com

Associate professor,
Department of Production Engineering,
PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore-641004, Tamilnadu, India.
vkrishnaraj@hotmail.com

Abstract----- Composites find lot of applications in aerospace,

defence, automotive and medical industries due to its high
strength to stiffness and weight ratio. After the composites are
demoulded, trimming the edges is the first machining operation
to be carried out. The heterogeneity and anisotropy of the
composite materials make machining difficult and accompanied
with different damages. The accuracy of the surface profile is one
of the important components of both dimensional and geometric
accuracy and play a significant role in achieving overall product
quality because it is often directly related to the products
functional performance. The defects in the free edges are mainly
influenced by the machining parameters (such as speed, feed,
depth of cut and fibre orientation) and the type of machining
(orthogonal cutting and oblique cutting). This paper presents
some observations like feed force, normal force and surface
roughness made on the orthogonal and oblique cutting of
unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced plastics.
Keywords ------ CFRP, Edge trimming, Normal force, Feed force
and Surface roughness.

1.INTRODUCTION
Composite materials such as carbon ber-reinforced
plastics (CFRPs) made by using carbon bers for reinforcing
plastic resin matrices, such as epoxy, are characterized by
having excellent properties as light weight, high strength and
high stiffness. These properties make them especially
attractive for aerospace applications. Milling is the machining
operation most frequently used in manufacturing parts of
ber-reinforced plastics, because components made of
composite materials are commonly produced by near netshape that often require the removal of excess material to
control tolerances, and milling is used as a corrective
operation to produce a well dened and high quality surfaces.
The machinability of ber reinforced plastics is strongly
inuenced by the type of ber embedded in the composite and
by its properties. There are literature dealing with orthogonal
machining of CFRP where as the drilling and edge trimming
process comes under oblique cutting. The cutting forces in

CFRP are primarily dependent on various cutting parameters

[1]. The effects of tool geometry and operating conditions
were evaluated from an analysis of cutting force and
machined surface topography.
Especially the material
removal rate is dependent on fiber orientation [2]. Orthogonal
machining of UD CFRP laminate with different fiber
orientations were studied and cutting force were found to
depend on the fiber angle [3]. The optimization of the cutting
conditions is extremely important in the selection of the tools
and cutting conditions in machining of CFRP [4]. The cutting
force and the surface finish fluctuate with respect to depth of
cut, feed rate and the cutting speed [5]. The subsurface
damage and its mechanisms of a machined component are
greatly influenced by fiber orientation. Fiber orientation is the
key factor that determines the surface integrity of machined
component [6, 7, 8]. The cutting forces generated during edge
trimming are very important, controlling these cutting forces
constitutes one of the keys to reduce the defects induced in
CFRP parts. Cutting forces are governed by many phenomena,
such as material properties, cutting conditions and tool
geometry [9,10,11].The current paper investigates the
inuence of cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed, depth of
cut and fiber orientation angle) on the feed force (Fx), normal
force (Fy) and surface roughness on edge trimming of CFRP
composite material using tungsten carbide end mills, with the
purpose to establish a relationship between cutting parameters
for cutting force and surface roughness in both orthogonal and
oblique cutting.
II. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD AND PARAMETERS
A. Experimental setup
The machining trials were carried out on the CNC
(MAKINO) vertical machining center Model S33 in dry
condition. A 3 axis dynamometer with amplifier was used to
measure the cutting forces. A surface roughness tester was

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used for measuring the surface roughness at different trails.

Fig.1 shows the experimental setup for edge trimming.

C. Type of Machining
The composite parts after demoulded from the dies, the
edge trimming operation is essential to make the edges to the
required shape and finish. The edge trimming operation in
upmilling is shown in Fig.4. Edge trimming can be done by
either orthogonal cutting or oblique cutting. In this research
the method of edge trimming which gives low cutting force
and low surface damage was studied.

Fixture

6 mm end mill

CFRP Laminate
Chips

Milling Tool
Dynamometer

Normal force (Fy)

Feed direction
Feed force (Fx)

Fig.1. Experimental setup for edge trimming.

B. Work material and tool material

Fig.4. Edge trimming (Upmilling) of CFRP

The unidirectional CFRP laminate work material was
used as the test specimen of 16 plies of size 50 mm x 50 mm x
4.2 mm. The machining were done by considering the three
different fiber orientations such as 0, 45 and 90. Fig.2
represents the different fiber orientations of CFRP material
used for edge trimming.

The experiments were carried out with four factors at

three levels each, as shown in Table 1. The fractional factorial
design used is a standard L9 (3*4) orthogonal array. This
orthogonal array was chosen due to its capability to check the
interactions among factors.
Table 1. Factors and levels used in the experiment

Cutting direction

Factors
Cutting speed (m/min)

1
10

Levels
2
20
0.203

3
30

Feed rate (m/min)

0.102

0.305

Depth of cut (mm)

0.5

1.5

Fiber orientation (deg )

45

90

The main objective of this experiment is to optimize the

cutting parameters to achieve low cutting force and in turn
low surface damages. Statistical analysis software Minitab 15
was used for analysis of various cutting conditions and also to
identify the rank of influence of those parameters.

45 orientation

Fig.2. Different fiber orientations of UD CFRP

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Tungsten carbide K20-6 mm straight fluted end mill
with two flutes and tungsten carbide K20- 6 mm helical flute
with helix angle of 15 end mill with four flutes were used for
orthogonal and oblique cutting respectively. Fig.3 shows the
types of tools used in machining.

A. Orthogonal cutting
In orthogonal cutting the cutting forces obtained were
minimum at high cutting speed, medium feed rate and low
depth of cut. The fiber was sheared easily and the cutting
forces required were minimum. Alternately, low cutting speed
and high feed rate influence more on increasing in the cutting
forces. From the experimental results on orthogonal cutting of
CFRP, it was observed that fiber orientation angle had no
much influence on cutting force. Instead of that the cutting
parameters like cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut were
influencing more.

Fig.3. Tools used

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(a) Images of machined surface with surface roughness value

at experimental condition of cutting speed =10 m/min, feed =
0.102 m/min, depth of cut = 0.5 mm and fiber angle = 0 in
orthogonal cutting.

(b) Images of machined surface with surface roughness value

at experimental condition of cutting speed =30 m/min, feed =
0.102 m/min, depth of cut = 1.5 mm and fiber angle = 45 in
oblique cutting.
Fig.6. Images of machined surface on oblique cutting

(b) Images of machined surface with surface roughness value

at experimental condition of cutting speed =30 m/min, feed =
0.305 m/min, depth of cut = 1 mm and fiber angle = 0 in
orthogonal cutting.

Fig.6 shows the images and values of surface roughness

of CFRP materials at optimum and worst cutting conditions
respectively. From the study of images obtained at different
experiments it was observed that at low cutting speed =
10 m/min, low feed = 0.102 m/min, low depth of cut = 0.5
mm and fiber angle = 0 the surface roughness obtained was
minimum and at experimental condition of cutting speed =
30 m/min, feed = 0.102 m/min, depth of cut = 1.5 mm and
fiber angle = 45 in oblique cutting the surface roughness
obtained was maximum in oblique cutting.

Fig.5. Images of machined surface on orthogonal cutting

Fig.5 shows the images and values of surface roughness
of CFRP materials at optimum and worst cutting conditions
respectively. From the study of images obtained at different
experiments it was observed that at same fiber orientation of
0 cutting conditions the roughness values obtained were
different and the difference were maximum. This is because of
at low feed rate and depth of cut conditions the surface
roughness will be minimum.
B. Oblique cutting
The combination at low cutting speed, low feed rate, low
depth of cut and 0 fiber orientation the surface roughness
observed in oblique cutting was minimum. From the analysis
the parameter fiber angle influences more to decrease the
surface roughness. Likewise the ranks of influencing of
parameters on surface roughness were studied.

(a) Image of machined surface with surface roughness value

at experimental condition of cutting speed =10 m/min, feed =
0.102 m/min, depth of cut = 0.5 mm and fiber angle = 0 in
oblique cutting.

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Fig.7. Relationship between the helix angle and the cutting

forces at different cutting conditions
The Fig.7 represents the effect of helix angle on cutting
forces at different cutting conditions. It was observed that at
all combinations of cutting conditions the cutting forces
induced on oblique cutting was less when compare to
orthogonal cutting. Also the normal force was high when
compare to feed force at almost all cases.

Fig.8. Relation between the helix angle and Surface roughness

at different cutting conditions
The Fig.8. represents the efefct of helix angle on surface
roughness at different conditions. It was studied that at all
combinations of cutting conditions the roughness measured in
oblique cutting was minimum when compare to orthogonal
cutting.
IV. CONCLUSION
1. The edge trimming of UDCFRP on orthogonal cutting and
oblique cutting were done. It is observed that at the cutting
conditions, cutting speed = 30 m/min, feed = 0.203 m/min,
depth of cut = 0.5 mm and fiber angle = 90 the normal force
(Fy) is minimum at both orthogonal and oblique cutting.
Lower forces were registered at higher cutting speeds. At
cutting speed = 10 m/min, feed = 0.305 m /min, depth of cut =
1.5 mm and fiber angle = 90, the normal force is maximum at
orthogonal cutting.
2. The cutting force increases with increase in feed rate and
depth of cut. Because chip thickness becomes significant
which cause the growth of volume of deformed material (i.e.
MRR), consequently enormous force is required to cut the
chip.
3. From the experimental and statistical analysis an optimum
cutting condition which gives minimum surface roughness
was found. The cutting forces (Fx and FY) and surface
roughness are 2- 3 times minimum in oblique cutting when
compare to orthogonal cutting.
4. The parameter depth of cut influences more to decrease the
surface roughness. i.e., decrease in depth of cut decreases the
surface roughness for orthogonal cutting and fiber orientation
influences more to decrease the surface roughness in oblique
cutting. The combination at which low cutting speed, low
feed, low depth of cut and low fiber orientation angle were
observed as optimum conditions for minimum surface
roughness in both orthogonal cutting and oblique cutting

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