• Question: how hard is it to making and breaking carbon fibre

    Asked by 374spcc29 to Rhys on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Rhys Archer

      Rhys Archer answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      It’s not too difficult, but it takes a bit of time and you have to be really precise. When you make the carbon fibre composite, it takes a certain way of laying up all the fabrics, and then very careful manufacture to vacuum bag it before putting all the glue in that will bind your composite, which also has to be done very carefully. Breaking it is much easier! We put it in an impact machine, which is usually a small tower with a heavy ball at the top which is released at a high speed onto the composite. I can spend 2 weeks in the lab making a carbon fibre composite – and just 1 hour in the lab after breaking it!

Comments

  • Photo: Mike

    Mike commented on :

    Most people think of carbon fibre as a stiff material that we make solid things out of but in my company we make a special type of carbon fibre that’s highly flexible. This them allows us to roll it into a coil – think of a builder’s tape measure – and then it can self-deploy. This is really handy when you want booms or antennas that are very light but strong and can stow in a very small area. Our CF is pretty tough to make as we need a very precise ‘cooking’ process to achieve the kinematic properties we’re looking for.

    And because our CF can made to hold a lot of stored energy they sometimes are accidentally deployed into things and break! So we’re very careful with CF destined to fly but prototypes often come to schools etc with me to be played with.