Core Milling Processes and Technologies

Core cutting is one aspect of advavced composite manufacturing that has traditionally lagged behind other composite materials and manufacturing processes, until the recent development of the highly successful CNC Ultrasonic Cutting Process. This process substantially eliminates the resulting dust and many other objectionable aspects of machining details from a sheet or block of core in an otherwise modern, clean manufacturing environment. Ultrasonic cutting, relative to composite manufacturing, was initially envisioned by the developers as primarily a superior method of cutting single andmultiple layers of prepreg, as a way to minimize the wear resulting from the abrasive nature of the combinations of fibers and resin systems. Therefore, the development of the ultrasonic cutting tools was primarily limited to short knives. When it was determined that ultrasonic cutting was a superior method of machining honeycomb, longer knives and other types of ultrasonic cutters were developed, which satisfy the requirements for a greatly improved process of cutting most types of core. However, loaded core materials (military programs) have not been available to the technology developers. Therefore this project will explore what additional developments, enhancements and new processes are required to address the problems of machining loaded core, including Total Process Time.