Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part B Journal of Engineering Manufacture

To fulfill the demands of higher precision, better quality, and more flexibility, the usage of high-performance industrial robots is rapidly increased in aerospace industry. Considering the anisotropic and inhomogeneous characteristics of composite materials, this study focuses mainly on dynamic response investigation of a newly designed hybrid robot (named as TriMule) in CFRP trimming process and its influence on the machined quality. First, combined with the cutting force characteristic, the vibration responses of tool center point (TCP) under the dynamic excitation were obtained. The influences of robotic TCP vibration on machined surface quality with different fiber orientations, including surface waviness, cavity, 3D surface roughness, and depth of affected zone, are first studied by comparing hybrid robot and machine tool. From experiment results, it can be concluded the proposed TCP vibration response model has sufficient prediction accuracy. Meanwhile, it is found that larger robotic vibration response is accompanied by higher surface waviness, bigger surface cavity, and greater affected zone. Results also showed that the fiber orientation and milling style are two essential factors that affect robot vibration and machining quality during CFRP trimming.

Analysis of vibration response and machining quality of hybrid robot based UD-CFRP trimming