I know its a bit of a stupid question, but ROUGHLY how much would a 25mm x 500mm solid (I know...) bar of CF cost?
Ta, Duane 🙂
Its a double edged sword
In the Uk we who make stuff use prepreg which generally is an epoxy reinforced carbon fabric around 40 quid per SQm for a material called 300k fibre with an ltm or mtm(low/medium temperature cure resin system) now if you recall our previous conversation on materials this is the low end there are differing fibre systems and on top of that differing resin sytems
the fibres are like types of tree for example softwood /hardwood/
some fibre systems are called intermediate modulus some are high modulus ...guess what the cost goes up toward the high modulus but they are much stiffer than the normal modulus fibres so in theory you use less but as they get more high they become a bit brittle so its like glass strong but fragile this means we then start to mix fibres
this is the true beauty of composites/ think of it like if you know what you want it to do you can tune it !!!unlike a metal which has defined properties if i want to make metal stiffer i can but it costs money if i want a composite to be stiffer i just add a layer of a low medium or higher modulus material
imagine that 40 quid SQ/m rolled up to make a solid bar THE AVRAGE LAYER THICKNESS BEING 0.12 MM alternately look at protrusions
heres a tip go to goodfellows they do scientific materials (very expensive) look up solid carbon bar the production method dictates the price
people think carbon is expensive??? its not but engineered properly it can be!!!
Ach, I just want a rough price 😕 Like we looking at 20quid, or 200quid? And most likely cheap crappy grade (as thats what it'll be compared to).
Cheers for the help, Duane.
You'd be looking at a custom pultrusion for that. No one makes 25mm 'solid' pultruded bar, 'tube' for sure, but not solid, not past 8-10mm there's no use for it.
http://www.carbonology.com/05m-carbon-tube-265mm-id-293mm-od-p-128.html
These guys are reasonably priced for tubing, it's shit grade though.
I get carbon fibre (non pregnated) from ebay, about £100 for 8 sq metres. It's fine for my amateur designs.
Why do you need such a thick lump? The thing with CF is you need to change the way you design parts. If you just copy a existing design made using traditional materials you miss out the benefits of CF. With CF you can add stiffness and 'strength' (not a good word to use, I know)where you need it and reduce it where you don't, therefore reduce weight even more, plus you'll use less material.
Richard
Carbon Fibre cost my mate a broken shoulder with some new (free) metal pins holding his arm back on after the ruddy stuff broke on a fast bridal way, he's lucky he still has his teeth as he missed a rock by inches.
Carbon Fibre : bad, steel / aluminum : good.
I think you mean poorly designed=bad, well designed=good.
The material is irrelevant.