Research on CFRP cutting mechanism by the micro-textured tool using macroscopic and microscopic numerical simulations

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) composites are the most widespread advanced composite materials. Still, machining with traditional tools quickly generates defects such as high cutting forces and severe subsurface damage, while micro-textured tools can improve CFRP machining performance. Therefore, to reveal the cutting mechanism of CFRP processing by micro-textured tools and guide the tool design, macroscopic and microscopic orthogonal cutting models were established in this study, which compared and analyzed the material removal process and the indicated topography of unidirectional CFRP with different fiber orientations (0°, 45°, 90°, and 135°) by traditional tools and micro-textured tools, and the accuracy of the models was verified with experiments. Compared with traditional tools, micro-textured tools reduce cutting forces by minimizing the tool-chip contact length to reduce friction and converting the fiber failure form from crush failure to shear failure. Meanwhile, the texture on the rake face enables cutting burrs, effectively improving the surface quality of the workpiece and suppressing the depth of subsurface damage. In addition, the influence of different texture parameters on the machining quality of the workpiece was analyzed.