Abstract: Since the carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) has poor machine processing property especially for drilling,a finite element (FE) model of drilling CFRP was developed. The thrust force during drilling at different machining parameters was simulated by utilizing ABAQUS software and drilling experiment was performed at the same machining parameters. The results show that the thrust force decreased with the increase of speed of mainshaft,increased with the increase of feeding speed and was effected significantly by the feed. The FE model is reasonable because the better agreement between the numerical simulation results and the experimental ones.