The future of carbon fiber? Affordable for most vehicles ?

[All Darc]

Bellow I explain about the 2 new ways to make carbon fiber affordable in near future.
(I need just 1 more post to be allowed to post links and images).

[All Darc]

We kow carbon fibar it's very expansive. Expansice to produce the fabric sheets, and expansive (slow time consuming) way to work with.

Bu I remambered about two interesting news about carbon fiber, about possible dramatically reduce cost of manufacture and cost of working labor, one from my country Brazil, and other from EUA ands other researchs.

The brazilian research developed a carbon fiber made from petroleum tar, with very reduced cost, about 15 dollar per kg.

https://exame.abril.com.br/tecnologi...ra-de-carbono/
http://www.tecnologiademateriais.com...bro/piche.html
(I didn't found a english news about it, so use translator)


The other research is finding ways to better and faster place and shape layers of carbon fiber, by using powerfull infrared lasers. Article from 2016, but since 2010 or so they talk about use of lasers.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/0...matically.html
https://newatlas.com/fraunhofer-lase...process/14635/

If both researches get succcess, we can predict a near future with a lot of carbon fiber being used in many more aplications. Let's cross fingers.

I know carbon fiber aone it's not ideal, since it's not very eleastic and bracks suddenly insteadof bend first. But it can be used combined with other materials for reach specific goals.

[rmay635703]

BMW and other 3rd parties have been stating for 10 years that fiber can be produced at the same cost as steel.

A few 3rd parties claim to have the tech to make fiber at 1/10 the cost of steel but have no takers due to 10+ year design cycles

Meanwhile we need all cars and trucks to be under 2000lbs to meet efficiency standards, there are some who believe this is fully possible but auto companies are slow to adopt and loath being stuck with the same dies and design for 10+ years.
It has also been found big lightweight vehicles are just as safe as big heavy vehicles due to the crumple zone being the same.

Beyond government I see no way to make these parties come together, I also doubt GM and Ford would be willing to share dies to get the cost out either.

Ah well, fiber is always 10 years away, see if that ever changes.

[All Darc]

I hope alternative vehicles industry arrive, instead of we wait to the big ones change.

The brazilian carbon fiber from petroleum tar already had a semi industrial instalation. If the cost for carbon fiber sheets get better, people would at least have lower price for DIY projects.

Cars can be safer with reinforced driver area, but the crumple zone it's important to absorb impact.

One thing anoys me. The carbon fiber shappingg made in home, like we see in youtube videos, do not use autoclaves, and many carbon fiber sheets looks very crap, not even solid. I presume that withouty a autoclave it's impossible to create really resistant carbon fiber like in formula one cars.

[oil pan 4]

Problem is carbon fiber has amazing compressive strength, then it fails catastrophicly. Where steel and aluminum by nature bend when they fail, not shatter.
I worked with carbon fiber many years ago and I'm not saying it can't be done, I just don't know how it would be done.

[Stubby79]

Gonna be a PITA to recycle a mostly carbon-fiber vehicle, at a guess. But it would be nice if it became commonplace for sports cars and eco cars...

[oil pan 4]

Things like carbon fiber and fiberglass have pretty limited recyclablity.

[jakobnev]

If it doesn't rust it can be repaired "forever".

When it cant be repaired any more, it's energy can be recovered by burning it.

[oil pan 4]

Burning carbon fiber and epoxy was a small part of a class action lawsuit in the 90s against the DoD for civilian contractors who worked in locations where the waste from classified projects was burned to get rid of it and later on developed a large number of rather unusual health related problems.
Burning carbon fiber may not be a good idea.

[All Darc]

Carbon fiber can't be recycled to the same quality. You would get a second class carbon fiber, not god enough for standarts asked for cars. It could be used in other applications perhaps.

If you have a large piece of carbon fiber, like a car's hood, and it broked in a small place, you need to change the entire piece. At least at present day.
Perhaps in near future the high end layers could have a portable hand version tool to"solder" a nem piece of carbon fibar to fill just the hole and keep most of the original strength.

Originally Posted by Stubby79

Gonna be a PITA to recycle a mostly carbon-fiber vehicle, at a guess. But it would be nice if it became commonplace for sports cars and eco cars...

If the carbon fiber it's so flexible, like a pepar, looking just the fabric in rolls, is it just the epoxi resin that give it hardness, or the autoclave process indeed have a hardening direct in the carbon fiber sheet ?

I found that carbon fiber need to get pyrolisis, but I don't knoiw if it's just in the manufacture of the sheet rolls, or if it's also for the shape process.

I saw a video once, about little fine sticks of carbon fiber resisting hard strikes with a metal bar. But in other videos, like from carbon fiber pieces from bikes and videos of carbon fiber pieces made without autoclave, the pieces broked easily with hammer, and didn't look very hard or rigid.
A bike made of carbon fiber broked easier than steel and aluminiun :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOraxyz8HZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp40gAkdV3w

And this other was weak for weight presure :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvk63bmVpck

I know it depends of how many layers and final thickness and the direction of fibers, the way to combine sheetas in different direction. But something that is suposed to be many times stronger than steel... It would be more resistant, do you agree ?

When they compare carbon fiber's resistance to a given number times the resistance of steel, is the comparison what is the reference ? The same thickness for both, or same weight for both ?
One video used weight as reference, but I don't know if it's the official reference or not.

Carbon fiber can be great, otherwise it would not save Formula-1 drives so often, I know. So I'm not challenging science or creating conspiracy theories. But watching these videos above we get a bad feeling, like it appears poor for impacts, poor for pressure and weight, poor for resistance for cutting or drill... What what is left for quality ???

Maybe there are good and also very crap carbon fiber products.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Problem is carbon fiber has amazing compressive strength, then it fails catastrophicly. Where steel and aluminum by nature bend when they fail, not shatter.
I worked with carbon fiber many years ago and I'm not saying it can't be done, I just don't know how it would be done.