Comparative study on the machining quality of thin-walled CFRP circular cell in end face grinding and milling

Carbon fiber reinforced resin composite (CFRP) circular cell honeycomb is with honeycomb structure formed by 2D dense arrangement of thin-walled circular cells in a horizontal plane, which can be applied in the aerospace. In order to explore the feasibility of end face grinding and milling on CFRP circular cell honeycomb, CFRP circular cell was identified as the experimental subject and exit angle was introduced considering the thin-walled characteristic of the cell in this research. End face machining experiments were conducted to study the effects of exit angle, material removal rate, axial cutting depth, and cutting speed on the machined surface morphology and force. The results indicate that the exit angle affects the material support state of the processing area and the fiber cutting angle to influence the formation of damage and excessive or insufficient exit angles may cause damage. By reducing the real feed rate, axial cutting depth or increasing the cutting speed may reduce cutting force and restrain the damage under the condition of small exit angle in end face grinding to some extent, but the above measures cannot have an impact on milling damage. End face grinding is preferred because of its larger efficiency and low-damage machining process operation range.