• Question: how hard is it to make carbon fiber

    Asked by engy to Camilla, Dan, Katie, Mike, Rhys on 15 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Little Einstein.
    • Photo: Mike Lawton

      Mike Lawton answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Carbon fibre itself is now pretty easy to manufacture. In fact we now use a fully automated weaving process to get us to a carbon fibre weave/fabric sheet. From here you need to add what’s called a “resin system” – in effect glue to turn the carbon fibre cloth-like sheet into a solid shape that could be used for anything from a tennis racket to part of a satellite. The process of adding the resin system and what’s called the ‘curing process’ to turn the raw material of carbon fibre into a useful shape, requires quite a bit of materials & engineering skill. An engineer really needs to understand the limitations of the material and what it or cannot do and really importantly the operating environment for the end product.

      At my company we’re innovating with carbon fibre. Rather than having a fixed, solid shape we’re developing a flexible carbon fibre material that can change shape. If you imagine a builder’s tape measure but made of carbon fibre, we can unfurl a long piece of the material from a very small stowage volume. When we embedded the material with wires or flexible electronics, we have large deployable antennas. We think this is pretty cool technology and it’s gets it first chance in space next year. Fingers crossed it’ll all work….

    • Photo: Katie Sparks

      Katie Sparks answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Before you can weave with carbon fibre, to make the large sheets of fabric, you need the carbon fibre “yarns”. To make the yarns a chemical needs to be made, it’s something like tar used to pour on roads, while it’s liquid it’s then pulled and pulled to make long lines: the yarns. Depending on what is in the chemical changes some of the characteristics of the carbon fibre. When it’s made up as a panel, the resin changes the properties too, so you need to select the right carbon fibre and the right resin to make a panel that does everything you want.

    • Photo: Rhys Archer

      Rhys Archer answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      Carbon fibres themselves I’m not to sure, as I receive the carbon fibre already as a fabric. First the fibres need to be prepared, then spun into some kind of yarn. This is then knitted, electro spun, or woven into a material (similar to how your shirts or jumpers may be made, just using carbon fibres instead). Then I receive that material. To create a composite, I use 16 layers of the carbon fibre material and put them all on top of each other, then layer other materials on top as well as a bag type material and I suck all the air out of it to create a vacuum. Then I pump a substance called a resin into it, which is a kind of glue, then put it in the oven to cure, which makes the resin hard and when its finished you have a carbon fibre composite panel!

    • Photo: Camilla Weiss

      Camilla Weiss answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      I don’t know the answer to this question by I’m very interested in Mike’s flexible carbon fibre – I think we’d be able to find a use for this kind of technology on our satellites! We have a facility where we build structures out of carbon fibre. I think once the fibre’s made it’s quite easy to make any shape that you want, although it can take a bit of experimenting to get the right structure!

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