Novel Machining Configuration of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Using Wire Electric Discharge Machining (WEDM)

Advanced aerospace materials like Carbon Fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) contains heterogeneous and anisotropic material characteristics that does not exhibit sufficient toughness before failure. CFRP materials are recently replacing most of the modern applications like aerospace, space exploration and in various exotic engineering applications due to their outstanding strength to super lightweight properties. Manufacturing operations like cutting and machining the CFRP to the required shapes are most challenging aspects that are addressed in recent times. Aim of this research is to investigate the influence of CFRP orientation and layering pattern when machined using WEDM Machining process. As the material is extremely capable, and its heterogeneous structure makes them stand out from other conventional materials investigating its machinability using WEDM is vital. WEDM is extremely capable and could produce parts with intrinsic cuts and high precision. The various parameters involved with WEDM are carefully studied along with the novel metal-CFRP-metal sandwich configuration to machine and the CFRP samples are experimented with these parameters. The results obtained from the research are analyzed and the best suitable combinations of WEDM parameters are determined. To facilitate this, the cut samples are observed under a microscope to closely inspect the samples to discover which parameters had influenced the smoothness and quality of the cut the most.