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Old 08-08-2009, 04:54 PM   #9 (permalink)
Bicycle Bob
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It opened fine for me, and I found the hidden "zoom" buttons too. I didn't read the whole thing, but that's about the amount of fuss it takes to get a high fiber content. The first page does not really make the point that the strength of a composite is considered to lie in the fiber direction; the resin is just there to maintain fiber alignment. Like mortar, it is never given a tensile load to handle by itself.
The last page fails to caution against the safety hazard of carbon fiber dust. It will stain your hands as well as your lungs, in car-part quantities.
I'd recommend that anyone should practise their technique using fiberglass, because you can see your mistakes better and learn to avoid them.
Using expensive fiber makes us more inclined to use advanced construction techniques, but they can also more than double the performance of cheap materials. Swiching to carbon mostly adds stiffness at the expense of toughness. The overall challenge is to arrange the fibers the way a tree would, using just enough in each area and keeping them very straight and even, and packed with the minimum amount of resin.
If you don't like the waste from pre-impregnated material with multiple layers of resin blotter, etc. try dry-bagging for car-size parts. The beginning of Velomobile project 2004 With just a makeshift vacuum pump, that can get you very close to the properties of the best autoclaved aerospace parts.

Last edited by Bicycle Bob; 08-08-2009 at 05:03 PM.. Reason: last line
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