Experimental and Numerical Studies on Defect Characteristics During Milling of Aluminum Honeycomb Core

The honeycomb sandwich structure has been widely used in the aerospace industry due to its high specific strength and stiffness. However, the machining defects of the aluminum honeycomb core (AHC) have become the key factor that restricts its application. In this paper, the defects' characteristics including the formation mechanism, distribution characteristic, and cutting process of honeycomb cell walls during AHC milling process were experimentally investigated. Furthermore, using normalized Cockcroft and Latham ductile fracture criterion and Johnson–Cook (JC) constitutive model, the numerical simulation of the AHC machining process was conducted concerning the entrance angle. It is indicated that six categories of milling defects are obtained and the quantity as well as distribution regularity of AHC milling defects are determined by the double effects of both the entrance angle and cutting force. Most of the surface defects of honeycomb materials were found concentrated in three regions, named by zones I–III, in which extruding, shear, and tensile deformation was mainly generated, respectively. Besides, the finite element simulation results also agree well with the experimental findings. Finally, a novel optimization method to avoid defects in the aforementioned regions by controlling the entrance angle of all the honeycomb walls during the cutting process was proposed in this paper. Meanwhile, the optimal control equations of the entrance angle for all cell walls were derived. This method was verified by milling experiments at last and the results showed that the optimization effect was obvious since the quality of the machined surface was greatly improved.