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Metal cutting is a substantial constituent of airframe manufacturing. During the past several decades, it has evolved significantly. However, most of the changes and improvement were initiated by the machine tool industry and cutting tool industry, thus these new technologies is generally applicable to all industries. Among them, few are developed especially for the airframe manufacture. Therefore, the potential of high efficiency could not be fully explored. In order to deal with severe competition, the aerospace industry needs improvement with a focus on achieving low cost through high efficiency. The direction of research and development in parts machining must comply with lean manufacturing principles and must enhance competitiveness. This article is being forwarded to discuss the trend of new developments in the metal cutting of airframe parts. Primary driving forces of this movement, such as managers, scientists, and engineers, have provided significant influence to this trend.

The work presented here illustrates the wear behavior of CVD diamond coated carbide tools during the machining of carbon fiber-reinforced composites. Cutting experiments were conducted on a CNC milling machine for edge trimming of a 9-mm thick multi-layered carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy laminate in a climb cutting configuration. The effects of feed speed and diamond film thickness on the wear behavior of the coated tools were determined. In addition, characteristics of the worn cutting edge were studied using optical and scanning electron microscopes. It was shown that diamond coated tools generally performed better than the uncoated tools under all conditions. Uniform wear by abrasion of the diamond film, without exposing the substrate, was obtained when cutting at low feed speeds with thicker coatings. At higher feed speeds the wear of the coated tools was characterized by abrasion through the diamond film and exposure and wear of the substrate.

Composites are finding more and more applications in the aircraft industry. Drilling good quality holes is a major challenge for the manufacturing industry. The major factors which have an effect on hole quality are cutting parameters like speed and feedrate, machine rigidity, tool material, workpiece material, and tool geometry. The hole quality was studied by measuring the hole diameter and visually observing other parameters like shape and fiber breakout. Force analysis indicates that thrust increases with an increase in feedrate. Speed does not seem to have a very significant effect on thrust. The tool geometry plays a very important role in fiber pullout.

A generalized upper bound model for calculating the chip flow angle in oblique cutting using flat faced tools with single cutting edge and multiple or curved cutting edges has been developed. The chip flow angle and chip velocity are obtained by minimizing the cutting power with respect to both these variables. The chip flow angles predicted by this model show good agreement with experimental values of chip flow angles for various tool geometries and cutting conditions. The model has the potential to be extended to the more complex machining processes such as drilling and milling.