<p>Protection of polyurethane organic coating effectively solves the problem of poor erosion resistance of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) surfaces applied to a new generation fighter aircraft and ship hulls. Due to the harsh operating environment, localized damage and peeling coating on the surface of the carbon fiber substrate need to be maintained in time to meet the requirements for each use. Although plastic abrasive jet machining (PAJM) can effectively remove damaged coatings without damaging the CFRP substrate, plastic abrasive’s own breakage and fragmentation have a non-negligible effect on coating removal. In this study, a plastic abrasive breakage model is developed to focus on the attrition and breakage behavior of plastic abrasives and its effect on coating removal. The results show that the particle breakage ratio of the selected plastic abrasives increases with the increase of particle velocity, and the breakage mechanism is a normal meridional fracture and local breakage of large particle size abrasives, while the wear mechanism of the smaller particle size abrasives are mechanical abrasion. The coating removal rate decreases with the increase of particle attrition and breakage, and the abrasives with larger particle size breakage are serious, and the removal rate of coating is close to that of 425 ~ 600&#xa0;μm abrasives after 5 times of repeated use. The coating removal rate of plastic abrasives with larger particle sizes decreases to 0.2 after about 15 times of repeated use, at which time new abrasives need to be added or replaced. The service life of plastic abrasives with a smaller particle size is about 30 ~ 40 times. This study provides a theoretical reference for CFRP surface coating removal in terms of suppressing plastic abrasive attrition and breakage.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>