Since carbon fiber epoxy composite materials have excellent properties for structures due to their high specific strength, high modulus, high damping and low thermal expansion, the hollow shafts made of carbon fiber epoxy composites have been widely used for power transmission shafts for motor vehicles, spindles of machine tools and rollers for thin film processing.
Although the net-shape molding of composites is generally recommended, the molded composites are frequently required cutting or grinding due to the dimensional inaccuracy for precision machine elements.
During the composite machining operations such as cutting and grinding, the temperature at the cutting point has a possibility to increase beyond the allowed limit due to the low thermal conductivity of composites, which might degrade the matrix of composite.
Therefore, in this work, the temperature at the cutting point during cut-off grinding of carbon fiber epoxy composites was measured. The cutting force and surface roughness were also measured to investigate the cut-off grinding characteristics of the composites. The experiments were performed both under dry and wet grinding conditions with respect to cutting speed and feed rate.
In order to predict the temperature rise at the cutting point, the temperature rise was numerically simulated using finite element method and compared to the measured results.
From the experimental investigation, the optimal conditions for the composite cut-off grinding were suggested.
