A study on the grindability of multidirectional carbon fibre-reinforced plastics

This work studied the grindability of the multidirectional carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites with the panel layup of [(0◦/90◦/45◦/−45◦)3]s. Focuses were on the chip formation, material removal mechanism, ground surface features and grinding force characteristics. The results were systematically compared with the unidirectional CFRP composites. It was found that the grinding forces for the multidirectional composites increase nearly linearly with raising the grinding depth. The chips produced showed a mixture of fine powder and broken fibres of various lengths. This is different from grinding the unidirectional fibre-reinforced composites, where the geometry of chips was mainly dependent on the fibre orientations. The longitudinal surface roughness of ground multidirectional composites varied strongly with the local fibre orientations. Severe damages, such as fibre pullout, were observed with the plies of [−45◦]. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.