Machinability study of unidirectional CFRP laminates by slot milling

Slot milling of unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates in four directions relative to fiber orientation is conducted to effectively study the machinability of CFRP composites with respect to process parameters and fiber orientation angle (relative to cutting speed) simultaneously and fiber orientation angle can vary from 0 to 180 ∘ continuously. First, slot milling experiments with a full factorial design are conducted to include all fiber orientation angles from 0 to 180 ∘ . Then, the cutting forces with respect to fiber orientation angle and chip thickness are decoupled and results are analyzed. The results show that both fiber orientation angle and chip thickness have significant effect on cutting forces and the specific cutting forces with respect to chip thickness are governed by power law for fiber orientation angle lower than 135 ∘ .