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Drilling high quality holes is a necessary prerequisite to ensure efficient and accurate connection and assembly of CFRP components. In addition to cutting force, cutting heat is another important factor affecting the quality of CFRP drilling. In this paper, a drilling experiment of CFRP laminate is carried out, and the method of prefabricating thermocouple holes on the edge of the test-hole is used to study the influence of fiber direction and processing parameters on the drilling temperature. Results show that when drilling along the fiber direction of 0°, the heat conduction in the edge area of test-hole wall is better than that of drilling along the fiber direction of 90°. Accordingly, the drilling temperature is obviously higher. Under this experimental condition, the temperature difference of the edge area of test-hole caused by the fiber direction is as high as 44 °C. At the feed rate of 0.04 mm/rev, when the speed increases from 1500 rpm to 4500 rpm, the axial force decreases by 13.9 %, and the peak temperature at p1 and v1 increase by 63.2 % and 22.2 %, respectively. At the spindle speed of 3000 rpm, when the feed rate increases from 0.02 mm/rev to 0.06 mm/rev, the drilling axial force increases by 35.0 %, and the peak temperature at p1 and v1 decreases by 31.1 % and 30.0 %, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a kind of typical structure, the hat-shaped structure (HSS) is widely used in carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) aircraft parts. In this work, a scheme of filling fillers and adding reinforcing plies in R-regions was proposed to strengthen the R-regions of HSS. Moreover, the force analysis of R-region with or without strengthening in R-region under pull-off load was presented. A finite element model was developed to study the failure behavior of R-regions. A series of HSS samples were fabricated by co-curing process. The pull-off tests of HSS were conducted to validate the model, and the failure mechanism of R-regions was further studied by characterizing the macro-micro structure of R-regions in HSS under pull-off load. Results showed that the structural bearing capacity of HSS can be improved by strengthening in R-regions. After strengthening in R-regions, the pull-off load was borne by multiple interfaces, and the interlaminar interface pull-off strength can increase by 38.8 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been generally recognized, and CFRP composite laminates have become widely used. Thus, a nondestructive technique would be very useful for evaluating CF/epoxy composite laminates. A pitch-catch UT signal is more sensitive than is a normal incidence backwall echo of a longitudinal wave in composites. The depth of the sampling volume where the pitch-catch UT signal came from is relatively shallow, but the depth can be increased by increasing the separation distance of the transmitting and receiving probes. Moreover, a method is utilized to determine the porosity content of a composite lay-up by processing micrograph images of the laminate. The porosity content of a composite structure is critical to the overall strength and performance of the structure. The image processing method developed utilizes software to process micrograph images of the test sample. The results from the image processing method are compared with existing data. Beam profile is characterized in unidirectional CFRP using pitch-catch Rayleigh probes. The one-sided and two-sided pitch-catch techniques are utilized to produce C-scan images with the aid of an automatic scanner. The pitch-catch ultrasonic signal corresponds with the simulated results of unidirectional CFRP composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]