Machining CFRP/GFRP Composite material.

The unrelenting passion of the aerospace industry to enhance the performance of commercial and military aircraft is constantly driving the development of improved high-performance structural materials. Composite materials are one such class of materials that play a significant role in current and future aerospace components. Composite materials are particularly attractive to aviation and aerospace applications because of their exceptional strength and stiffness-to-density ratios and superior physical properties. A composite material typically consists of relatively strong, stiff fibers in a tough resin matrix. Man-made composite materials, used in the aerospace and other industries, are carbon- and glass-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP and GFRP respectively) which consist of carbon and glass fibres, both of which are stiff and strong (for their density), but brittle, in a polymer matrix, which is tough but neither particularly stiff nor strong. Very simplistically, by combining materials with complementary properties in this way, a composite material with most or all the benefits (high strength, stiffness, toughness and low density) is obtained with few or none of the weaknesses of the individual component materials.