A Study on the Laser-Assisted Machining of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Silicon Carbide

In recent years, as replacements for traditional manufacturing materials, monolithic ceramics and carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) ceramic matrix composites have seen significantly increased usage due to their superior characteristics of relatively low density, lightweight, and good high temperature mechanical properties. Demand for difficult-to-cut materials is increasing in a variety of area such as the automotive and aerospace industries, but these materials are inherently difficult to process because of their high hardness and brittleness. When difficult-to-cut materials are processed by conventional machining, tool life and quality are reduced due to the high cutting force and temperatures. Laser-assisted machining (LAM) is a method of cutting a workpiece by preheating with a laser heat source and lowering the strength of the material. LAM has been studied by many researchers, but studies on LAM of carbon–ceramic composites have been carried out by only a few researchers. This paper focuses on deducing the optimal machining parameters in the LAM of C/SiC. In this study, the Taguchi method is used to obtain the major parameters for the analysis of cutting force and surface roughness under various machining conditions. Before machining experiments, finite element analysis is performed to determine the effective depth of the cut. The cutting parameters for the LAM operation are the depth of cut, preheating temperature, feed rate, and spindle speed. The signal to noise (S/N) ratio and variance analysis (ANOVA) of the cutting force and surface roughness are analyzed, and the response optimization method is used to suggest the optimal machining parameters.