Macro and micro process modeling of the cutting of carbon fiber reinforced plastics using FEM

The most recent developments in the application of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP), like for passenger aircrafts, wind power stations and hybrid cars, have increased the interest in manufacture of these materials. In this contribution results of two different approaches to the simulation of the cutting process of CFRP will be presented. The macro model is based on continuous but anisotropic material properties with implicitly defined fiber orientation and the micro model on explicit fiber / matrix representation. For verification purposes the simulation results were compared to cutting experiments. Partially the calculated results show very good agreement to experimental findings, e. g. for the material removal mechanism, but the cutting forces and thrust forces are significantly smaller, although tendencies were calculated correctly. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICM11