Why is it so expensive? the build process doesn't strike me as very scientific and the materials are hardly exotic.

Hi,

There are a number of reasons and it's getting even more expensive.

First, it is very Labor Instensive, not an easily automated process.

Second, the cost of producing Molds for limited production runs equates to a high cost/unit.

Third, and increasingly so, while the demand for Carbon Fiber increases, the Supply of Carbon Fiber is decreasing due to the high demand from Contract Consumers causing the price of the Raw CF Fabric and yarns to shyrocket. The market price of Carbon Fiber reinforced plastic saw a 150% increase during 2005, primarily due to increased use in the Civil Aerospace industry.

Allocation and contracts to Boeing Commercial Airplanes' 787 and Airbus' A350 XWB and A380 caused supply constraints, and suppliers raised prices to suit. As the aerospace companies were locked-in with long-term contracts, users of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic in other applications have suffered the brunt of this price hike. In fact, 6 of the 9 top producers of Carbon Fiber are now dedicating 100% of their output to fulfilling these aviation contracts, and will for the next 4-5 yrs. This essentially reduces the availability of supply of Carbon Fiber to the rest of Industry by 2/3.

There are a number of Companies working to make Carbon Fiber less expensive through newer Oxidation processes. Carbon Fiber is generally created from plastics such as Polyacrylonitrile (PAN), a polymer based on acrylonitrile, Rayon and Pitch. These are all derived from Petroleum, and so the price of Oil is another factor in the final price of CF.

These materials are then oxidized through Pyrolysis - the chemical decomposition of organic materials by heating in the absence of oxygen or any other reagents, except possibly steam (think pure, complete Burning). This process leaves only the Carbon as a residue, and is essentially the same process used to make Charcoal and Coke. These materials are used because they generally yield about 98% of their initial weight/mass as pure Carbon. This requires large, specialized, machinery such as very large Autoclaves, as well as large amounts of expensive Energy.

But, Research Labs, specifically Oak Ridge National Laboratories, are working on making the molding process more efficient and cost effective by introducing methods which can be done robotically see - http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20060306-00

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

"Allocation and contracts to Boeing Commercial Airplanes' 787 and Airbus' A350 XWB and A380 caused supply constraints, and suppliers raised prices to suit. As the aerospace companies were locked-in with long-term contracts, users of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic in other applications have suffered the brunt of this price hike." --wikipedia



Thank god for Wikipedia, you can also see how the Carbon Fibre structures are made for a popular supercar on youtube.

aside from materials, the build process to PROPERLY create carbon fiber components, especially structural components, is quite difficult. much of what's on sale in the way of body panels, bumpers, interior parts, etc. is made in more or less the same way as a fiberglass part. in this case, it's not much stronger or lighter or time consuming to construct.

on the high end, very tight controls on the mold (materials, temperature, humidity, etc.) are in place. where i work, we even went so far as to choose a metal that has the same thermal coefficient of expansion as the CF matrix has to prevent distortion.

once the molds have been created, the fabric must be layed up in a manner specific in fabric orientation (you cant' just stick the fabric on the mold). you actually have to choose in which dimensions you want the part to be strong.

application of the resin is a task in itself if one wants to eliminate porosity, boracity / de-lamination issues, etc. after the resin is applied, a vacuum bag is put in place over the mold to suck the fabric and resin together. in some instances, the CF matrix is actually under tension during this process (pre-stressed CF matrix). after this, the whole schebang is baked in an autoclave.

the methods above probably aren't used on your average bumper, but they are used in F1, carrera GT, enzo, etc.

Jim,
Did you rip off Wiki without giving them credit?? Shame on you!

Hi,

No I didn't. Someone else PM'd me about Chico's (? or whatever his name is) post, seemingly jabbing me. I didn't see it since his contributions are hidden to me. Guy must be cyber-stalking me, disecting everything I write, I dunno - his prob, not mine, I'm not concerned with what he does.

I took my post from my own notes. I've been working with CF since I was studying for my degree in Materials Science back in the '70's. Back then, there were probably fewer than 1000 people who even knew what it was.

You see, I had a small business with a partner producing cosmetic CF parts for the Lotus Esprit. I met my partner, a fellow Esprit owner, at a Nat'l. Lotus convention we both attended. We had similar science/engineering backgrounds and decided to see if we could make up some parts. That's when we contributed to the article in Wikipedia back in '05. We made contributions to the articles on Carbon Nanotubes and Pyrolysis also - this isn't the only forum I contribute to.

He was actually working for a company and had access to some mold making equipment, including a CNC. I spec'd the pieces, produced 3D CAD drawings and my partner would use these to produce a mold and lay up the piece. We made a few sample pieces, but found that using the painted or wet method produced too many rejects from air bubbles, even when vacuum bagged.

We then started making the pieces from prepreg cloth and autoclaving them. These turned out so well that our reject rate came down from 50% to under 4%. So, we started making them to order. We produced about 1000 various pieces in total. But, since we used this expensive production method, we could not really afford to continue (at a price people were willing to pay, and we sold at near our cost) since we could not reach any economy of scale without making a sizeable investment in equipment and we didn't feel the market (both demand estimates as well as competition from firms already doing this work) warranted such a gamble. But, we had a good time, learned a great deal, made several new good friends, and came out pretty much even.

I'd actually forgotten about this submission to Wiki until I broke out my notes for the current thread. Guess I don't feel the need to footnote an article I co-authored...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Lol he thinks I'm stalking, I just decided to check his words against wikipedia and I just noticed that his first large reply about carbon fiber is word for word identical to thw wikipedia information on carbon fiber. Not jabing him, just think its unethical to copy and paste amounts of information like that without parphrasing it or quoting it. People get kicked out of there masters program for that kind of thing. But its a forum so doesn't really matter but I knew he didn't know everything about everything he posts... try compairing his posts to wikipedias info on carbon fiber.... word for word match on 80% of his posts here. And if he contributed his notes on CF to wiki, for someone who is anal to the max, he didnt cite himself at all in the artical

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fiber
Heres the history of contributions to the topic of CF on wiki and i see no Jim or MNBoxster listed
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carbon_fiber&limit=500&action=hist ory

I must admit, im being kind of a jerk right now so ill stop before things escalate.

Exposed as a fraud???

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...94860f9cc-.jpg

Impossible, because I'm ignoring you... Ignoring you... Ignoring you... I cannot hear you... Ignoring you... Ignoring you...

Rolflmao!
:D

CJ I think sometimes in life you have to admit when you are wrong (unless you are having a debate with Bruce Lee :D ).
Something our current Prez has learned the very hard way.

Yes, what he said. If your getting a spoiler made out of Figerglass, just make sure the mounting brackets are made well and don't crack at the base. This is why I would go with Carbon Fiber, it's less prone to stress cracks. I had a spoiler on my other car that slowly began to crack because of vibrations that were sent through it every time I closed my trunk. They started right where it bolted up to the deck lid. :cheers:

I usually do accept when im wrong quicker than anyone i know ever could. I admit i was being a jerk, cant say im wrong officially...you know the history of wiki, no jim there and he never forgets stuff, so how would he forget he posted that info word for word in wiki.... I find it strange, is all. :) I couuuuuuld be wrong but thats as far as ill go on record of admission or wrongness haha no big deal though really, Im looking for another thread to respond to today, this on is done :D

MNBoxster supplies some very useful and informative information to this board but I'd be more impressed if he'd reference his sources. This isn't the first incident.

Hi,

First off, I feel no great compulsion to prove anything to anyone here. My posts are my posts, believe them or not, it really makes me no nevermind.

That said, there are, IMHO, several members here who personify Equine Excrement Expulsion Orifices, or E³Os. It’s not necessary to identify them here. These people are Haters, and I just have no time for them.

So, to gain the most from my Forum time, I simply employed one of the tools the Owners have availed us and placed these people on my Ignore list. This way, I do not have to see any of their contributions when browsing threads, as I don’t give a damn what they say anyway.

This works quite well, and I wouldn’t mind one iota, in fact I’d welcome it, if they were to reciprocate and place me on their Ignore lists. This would surely save a wealth of hassle. But, as they relish controversies as much, or more, than content, I doubt it’ll happen.

To the issue at hand, I did co-author this article on Wikipedia. In fact, I made several contributions to it. I’ve been in the Car Hobby for many years and have vast notes of all type. When answering a thread, I often cut & paste from these notes as a matter of expediency, such as I did in this case. And, point of information, Wikipedia is not to be considered a tertiary source, and consequently, really does not require a footnote anyway.

But, I am also an author. As such, I often use nom de plumes when on the internet because this is my private time, and I rarely want to be identified with my professional work. Consequently, I don’t use anything associated with me when on most sites, Wikipedia amongst them.

For that, I took no user name and simply let my IP address suffice as my identifier, similar to many other Wiki contributors, it’s not at all unusual. And, if anyone were to care enough to check, I’m sure you’ll find only a handful of contributors at best who made contributions to those articles I mentioned, and even fewer who used their IP addy as their identifier. Of course, I know what it is, but as I said, I feel no obligation to prove or disprove anything.

Impugning a person’s integrity is a serious thing and not something one should do lightly, especially for revenge as the lister alludes. So serious in fact, that there are Laws to protect people from this type of reckless action.

Of course he now wants to casually disavow any consequence for his actions and I find this to be typical of him, which is no small part why I wish to ignore his presence here. I only wish he’d do the same with regards to me.

Post as often as I have, and it’s somewhat natural some may form resentment and try to challenge you. As most of you know, I’ve taken my share. That’s part of the game, but this guy’s shtick goes beyond the pale, especially for someone who regularly, innumerably, PM’d me for advice, often within minutes of slammin’ me, if you can imagine cojones like that. So, I’m sure you can imagine that I would wish to have no association with a person like that.

This Forum has changed over the past year and not necessarily for the better, partly due to people like this. IMHO, it’s becoming increasingly a gossipy Tea Party, with personal attacks and innuendo on the rise. A real shift in the demographic. So much so, that several contributing members just don’t visit regularly anymore. I’m seriously debating how much of my future free time I want to devote to it.

To quote Forest Gump: “And that’s all I have to say about that…”

Happy Motoring!... Jim’99

In a world only you know.

Prediction ...

... locked thread.

Yo CJ,

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...est-waders.jpg

I'm considering a group buy. What do you think? They'll allow us to read the forum without getting bull doo doo on our pants.

Signed,

Ernest Hemmingway

I think ill buy into that group buy, count me in.

I may need a pair or two of them things too...Grizz whats the MSRP on one of them theres suits you gots?


Edit: Just to keep things on topic.....Does that jumpsuit come in carbon fiber?

lmao!!! :D