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Micro-machining of UHMWPE composites reinforced with carbide fillers

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Abstract

Polymer matrix composites (PMCs) have become one of the most widely used engineering materials due to both the developments in polymers and advanced fillers. It is expected that polymer composites will take their final shape during the production phase, which means that they are not required to undergo new processes. However, in some applications, machining operations, such as turning, milling, grooving and hole drilling, cannot be avoided and thus, finishing operations must be applied to these materials. Since these materials have complex microstructures, finishing operations may cause situations that adversely affect engineering properties, such as matrix cracking, delamination, debonding, etc. In this study, micro-milling operations were performed for recently developed ceramic reinforced polymer composites. Three different spindle speeds were used while feed rate and cutting depth were kept constant in the operations. The composites were produced from powdered UHMWPE and silicon carbide particles. Several parameters were varied in the production of the composites, such as molding pressure, filler loading and filler size. The investigated outputs were cutting temperature and surface roughness, whereas machined surfaces and chip morphologies were also investigated via microscopy analyses. In the final stage, regression analyses were performed to investigate the relationships between the process parameters. According to the results, ceramic reinforced polymer composites exhibit different machinability properties than fiber-reinforced ones due to hard fillers and low melting point of UHMWPE.

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Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

CFRP:

Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer

EDS:

Energy-dispersive spectrometry

PMC:

Polymer matrix composite

SEM:

Scanning electron microscopy

SiC:

Silicon carbide

UHMWPE:

Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Research Fund of Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Project #202015046.

Funding

Research Fund of Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Project #202015046.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey

    Selim Gürgen

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey

    Mehmet Alper Sofuoğlu

Authors
  1. Selim Gürgen
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  2. Mehmet Alper Sofuoğlu
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Contributions

Conceptualization: SG; methodology: SG; writing—reviewing and editing: SG; investigation: MAS, data curation: MAS; software: MAS.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Selim Gürgen.

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The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time as the data also forms part of an ongoing study.

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Appendix

Appendix

Full set of thermography images are given in Fig. 12.

Fig. 12
figure 12

Thermography images for each specimen

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Gürgen, S., Sofuoğlu, M.A. Micro-machining of UHMWPE composites reinforced with carbide fillers. Archiv.Civ.Mech.Eng 21, 146 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43452-021-00299-z

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