Prediction and analysis of grinding burr of CFRP circular tube with a rounded corner grinding wheel

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) circular tubes can be used in aerospace, automotive, chemical and other applications due to their good physical and chemical properties. However, uncontrollable burrs will occur frequently when end grinding CFRP circular tubes by grinding wheel with rounded corner, which affects the manufacturing quality of the components. This paper aims to reveal the generation process of the burrs and propose the suppression method of the burrs. The end grinding experiments of CFRP circular tubes were conducted, and the generation process of the burrs was analyzed by observing the ground topographies of CFRP circular tubes. The result showed that process of burr formation is fiber-matrix debonding causing reduction of constraints on fibers, insufficiently constrained fibers cannot be effectively cut off by grinding wheel and transform into burrs. Moreover, a burr size prediction model was established and validated by experiments. On this basis, a burr suppression method was proposed. This research provides a theoretical and technical foundation for the high-quality manufacturing of CFRP circular tubes.