Carbon Fiber Products For Automobiles

Carbon fiber is one of the emerging high-tech materials. It was mostly used in the military and military industries in the past. With the advancement of technology and the increase in output, it has gradually begun to be popularized and applied in various manufacturing fields. Carbon fiber products are more and more widely used in the automotive manufacturing industry. In this article, let’s take a look at carbon fiber products for automobiles.  

Carbon fiber body and chassis: Carbon fiber materials have great advantages over traditional materials in terms of strength and stiffness. Making carbon fiber materials for the body and chassis can reduce the weight by 40%-60%. Currently, carbon fiber bodies are often used in some racing cars.  

Carbon fiber brake pads: Carbon fiber products are environmentally friendly and wear-resistant, and are ideal materials for automobile brake pads. Traditional brake pads are mostly made of steel and glass fiber reinforced plastics, which have low performance. Carbon fiber brake pads have superior braking stability and are mostly used in some high-end cars.  

Automotive carbon fiber, also known as automotive carbon fiber, generally refers to some materials made of carbon fiber weaving or multi-layer composite. Because it is light and strong, it has many uses. Mainly used on casings and parts. Automotive carbon fiber is lightweight, safe and economical.

The application of carbon fiber in the automotive field first started in racing cars, and has been widely used in civilian cars in recent years. Carbon fiber components coated with varnish and deliberately revealing deep black woven patterns are no longer just for the sake of looking cool. The “high carbon” trend is getting stronger and stronger.

The general density of carbon fiber is 1750 kg/cubic meter. Such a low density makes it widely used in large aircraft, such as Airbus A350 and A380, and Boeing 787 all use carbon fiber composite materials to reduce fuel consumption. In addition, the blades of large wind turbines, the bodies of racing cars, and high-end bicycles are all important factors in the increased demand for carbon fiber composite materials.

Soft Or Hard Carbon Fiber

Since it is a fiber fabric material, carbon fiber can be woven into carbon fiber cloth to change from thread to surface, while maintaining ultra-light, soft, and tensile properties. But how does it become a hard car body component?

Soft Carbon Fiber Cloth

The process of qualitative change from paper-soft to steel-hard is achieved by staggering the carbon fiber cloth according to the fiber direction in the mold, and using epoxy resin adhesive to stand the multiple layers of cut carbon fiber cloth together layer by layer. This process requires Use 5 to 10 or even more layers of thin carbon fiber cloth to bond them into a thickened carbon fiber cloth. At this time, its flexibility is very poor, almost like a rigid material. The principle is like pasting a page of paper completely into a thick pile of paper, and the pile of paper will become stronger.

Bonded Semi-Finished Product

After that, a high-temperature and high-pressure oven is used to further compress and strengthen the bonded volume. The final product will be the finished component blank. After deburring, grinding, polishing and other processes, the shiny body component will be cnc machined. This process seems simple, but the cost of carbon fiber cloth and process costs still make this process unable to be applied on a large scale, and the products produced are also extremely expensive.Carbon fiber drive shaft: The carbon fiber material has high strength and good specific modulus, and can adapt to the complex environmental characteristics of the drive shaft.

The carbon fiber drive shaft can not only reduce the weight, but also resist corrosion, fatigue and long service life.Compared with traditional structural materials, carbon fiber has the outstanding advantages of light weight and high strength. Its tensile strength, bending strength, and shear strength are better than most structural materials. While meeting the strength requirements for use, it can effectively realize the lightweight of the structure. , reduce energy consumption and achieve the purpose of energy saving and emission reduction. Carbon fiber is also a non-metallic material with excellent corrosion resistance and anti-aging properties, and a long service life.  

Full Carbon Bicycle Rack

Carbon fiber components, which feel similar to plastic but have the strength and toughness of steel, not only help the vehicle to effectively reduce weight, but also become a symbol of luxury due to their expensive characteristics. Italian supercars represented by Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani, etc. must be very familiar to everyone. In order to pursue lightweight, since the sheet metal manufacturing process is almost cost-effective, it is not a problem to apply carbon fiber components on a large scale or even use carbon fiber materials for the entire vehicle [1 ].

Love To Hate Carbon Fiber

Speaking of love and hate, this is because in the field of F1 racing, carbon fiber for the entire car is no longer a new technology. The fierce competition against every second and the increasingly stringent competition rules force major teams to pay attention to the application of carbon fiber technology. In addition to the power system, other components that can be realized with carbon fiber have already been realized.

Senna was the most regrettable in the history of racing because during the accident, a hard carbon fiber component (some say it was the axle) pierced Senna’s helmet, causing him to die on the spot. Kubica’s shocking crash in 2007. Times have changed, and the monocoque car body that has been precisely calculated and processed can meet the technical requirements of the F1 formula car to not deform under extreme collisions. Fans who like to watch F1 will definitely remember that Kubica’s car surpassed the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix. The car hit the protective wall at a speed of 300km/h. The car was launched into the air, fell and rolled over at the other end of the track. The car was basically shattered, but the cockpit remained intact. After the inspection, Kubica in the car only had a sprained ankle, but he was not injured. Delay the next game.

In the field of civilian automobiles, Mercedes-Benz tried to use carbon fiber materials as crumple zones, which was first used on the SLR McLaren. The spire-shaped carbon fiber collapse column is woven from countless thick carbon fibers. Although the structure is still extremely hard, it is designed to break into countless small fragments in a frontal collision to absorb a large amount of energy, and The fragments will not cause harm to people, which is very similar to the breaking principle of tempered glass in cars.

BMW has begun to experiment with the application of full-carbon car bodies in small cars. However, compared to the recyclability and repairability of metal materials, carbon fiber collapse pillars are one-time products. The high price makes them only applicable in supercars. sports car field.

Affordable Carbon Fiber For Everyone

Carbon fiber materials are also widely used in civilian mass-produced cars, especially mid-range products. Many manufacturers have also begun to provide small components of carbon fiber materials, such as rearview mirror housings, interior door panels, door handles, gear levers, racing seats, air Kits, etc., and there are also a wide variety of carbon fiber modification parts such as air boxes and intake manifolds that can be installed in the engine compartment in original positions.

Therefore, carbon fiber materials are increasingly used in the automotive field. It is believed that in the near future, vehicle emissions will become more and more “low-carbon”, while the vehicles themselves will become more and more “high-carbon”.

Structure For Automobiles

Each carbon fiber is composed of thousands of smaller carbon fibers, with a diameter of about 5 to 8 microns. At the atomic level, carbon fiber is very similar to graphite and is composed of layers of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern. The difference between the two lies in the connections between layers. Graphite has a crystal structure and its layers are loosely connected, while carbon fiber is not a crystal structure and its layers are irregularly connected. This prevents slippage and increases the strength of the material.

Carbon fiber is a new material with excellent mechanical properties. Its specific gravity is less than 1/4 of steel. The tensile strength of carbon fiber resin composite materials is generally above 3500MPa, which is 7 to 9 times that of steel. The tensile elastic modulus is 23000 ~43000MPa is also higher than steel. However, carbon fiber materials only show high strength along the direction of the fiber axis, but their impact resistance is poor and easy to damage. Therefore, when manufacturing into structural components, their advantages of tensile strength and light weight are often used to avoid being able to bear side effects. The impact part

China Be-cu Prototype Material Technology Co., Ltd. has a production workshop of more than 5,000 square meters, with large-scale hot presses, autoclaves, hydraulic forming tables, high-speed CNC milling machines and other large-scale equipment. The products produced are all made from Taiwan and Japan. And other well-known brands of raw materials production, quality assurance.

ISO 9001 certified. BE-CU Prototype Offering CNC machining carbon fiber and other manufacturing services for carbon fiber marterial. Various capabilities include notching, labeling, drilling carbon fiber, grinding, laser cutting carbon fiber, finishing, plating, marking, CNC milling carbon fiber and turning carbon fiber.We stock high quality 3k carbon fiber sheet in a variety of thickness, types and finish. Its a great material used in applications where light weight and strength are needed such as drones. Unlike other workshops, we have no min order and are often filling orders with a single part. We also don’t make you pay for the full sheet and you only get charged for what is used. With a large selection of material, you should find everything you need to make your project come to life. We are also able to handle larger production runs and provide a competitive pricing. If we don’t have the material or finish you require, we are more the willing to look at bringing it in for you.

What Is Carbon Fiber?Carbon fiber is made of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) (or pitch, viscose) and other organic fibers by carbonization (removal of most elements except carbon) by pyrolysis method under inert gas at high temperature above 1,000 °C. Inorganic polymer fibers with a carbon content of more than 90%.