Experimental investigation on the machinability of CFRP/Invar36 hybrid co-cured material in turning operations

Composite energy storage flywheels manufactured by carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) and alloy co-cured process have advantages like high energy storage density and desirable mechanical properties as compared with the traditional flywheels made of metal material. CFRP/alloy hybrid co-cured material has distinct mechanical properties leading to poor cutting performance. In this paper, the machinability of CFRP/Invar36 hybrid co-cured material was investigated in terms of cutting force, surface quality, and tool wear by turning operations. It can be concluded that with the increase of feed rate, the main cutting force increases accordingly for both CFRP and Invar36. Otherwise, high cutting speed contributes to the reduction of cutting force for both materials. The results also showed that higher cutting speed leads to a better surface finish for CFRP. Otherwise, subsurface defect depth for CFRP is mainly 200 to 300 μm. There is a huge discrepancy of surface quality between CFRP and Invar36 due to their distinct cutting mechanisms. In addition, tool wear mechanisms are mainly abrasive wear and adhesive wear.