Slimsta Jimsta

Well i'm in the process of doing a group research paper on carbon-fiber, and well the part i have to do is on the fabrication of it, and then how it's used on performance parts and the pro's/con's/reasons of it(such as a carbon fiber driveshaft like Jay has)

I'm having problems finding links, and it wouldn't suprise me at all if some of yall had info on it, or knew of links to where i could find the information. If you can help me out, that would rock.

Thanks guys

j4k3

well for one, instead of denting (on hoods) the clear just cracks and looks ugly...thats just my experience

split

www.fibreglast.com
www.honda-tech.com in fabrication section
www.google.com

Corey

Chris, where are you?

Fabrik8

I'm right here.. haha..
Fire away..

I'd give you my phone number but my GF is on it already. I don't have any good links to much stuff except vendors, because I have composites books for tech reference. I'll help any way I can though.

Slimsta Jimsta

i just need a brief description of how it's fabricated. I signed up on that forum you posted and i've been reading around.

The main thing i'm looking for now is just like.. how it's made, the process of it, and the benefits of it. My problem is that i need to be able to document my sources, but if you have any information, i'd greatly appreciate it

Fabrik8

How the parts are made with carbon fiber, or how the fiber itself is made? If you want to cheat a little I can pitch you some source info from my books, title, author, etc.

I've got 8 composite books on the bookshelf next to me, I haven't unpacked the rest yet.

Slimsta Jimsta

to be more specific, here's exactly the stuff i need to cover in the paper

Intro:
-What carbon fiber is
-How its made
-lead into chassis, drivetrain, and cosmetic uses in high performance automotive apps.


and i then later go further into the drivetrain stuff dealing with c/f. i'm not extremely knowegdeable in that area at all, so even if you just say what drivetrain components are made with c/f, that would help quite a bit


edit: yea, any of that would help greatly if you would like to do that

Fabrik8

So you want to how how the fiber itself is made? Or how parts are made with carbon fiber??

Am I missing something? Why can't I post attachements?

Anyway, carbon is made from either polyacrylonitrile(PAN) or petroleum "pitch" which is a byproduct of petroleum distillation. The PAN-based carbon fiber is better quality and more consistant. It's basically a type of plastic that is drawn into strands and then turned into pure carbon at a few thousand degrees F. Then it's collected into bundes, and the bundles are woven into fabric form, or just kept as flat bundles ("tow") for stuff like filiment winding (driveshafts, etc).
That's what you don't learn about normally, no one ever says how it's made.

I'll let you fill in the blanks about how carbon is stronger than steel by weight, etc. I'll give you some automotive insight though.

Carbon driveshafts have some flex to them, which is one of the reasons that they're used in racing. This goes a long way toward driveline survival. They're also lighter than steel shafts, and can be taylored to have strength in different directions (hoop, torsion, etc) by changing the angle that the fibers are wound.

Carbon fiber can also be used to make drivecases, but it hasn't really been perfected from a durability standpoint. A few F1 teams have tried with mixed results, some of that because they are feeding suspension loads into the drivecase (semi-stressed engine/tranny) and some of that because they have to contain the output loads of 900+ HP.

Carbon fiber and body tubs (F1, F3, F3000, etc.) are nice because of the way carbon fiber fails. It will hold and hold, and then fail catastrophically when seriously overloaded. This absorbs a lot of energy, so it can be a nice life saver for a driver. It also tends to explode into lots of bits though, so layers of kevlar are added to hold the peices together like chicken wire in paper mache.

I'm writing this all off the top of my head, so ask about any specifics and I'll tell you or look them up.

dru

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1320/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fiber