While carbon fiber composites are lightweight, durable and suited to a wide variety of applications, historically they are slow and expensive to manufacture. Until recently, this has meant that many sectors, including the military, aerospace and automotive industries, have been unable to adopt carbon fiber on a mass production basis. However, having undergone significant growth in production capacity and reduction in processing time in recent years, the carbon fiber industry now faces a variety of new opportunities and challenges.
Firstly, the automotive industry is seeing changes in the usage of carbon fiber. Antony Dodworth of Dodworth Design agrees: ‘it was certainly the case in the past that these expensive materials and lengthy manufacturing processes were only affordable on the premium supercars. But today, faster resins and highly automated manufacturing processes are all reducing cost tremendously.’ This increase in manufacturing efficiency is also down to the fact that parts are now being designed and manufactured specifically for carbon fiber composites, rather than for a material swap.
The needs of automotive companies differ from those of the aerospace industry, where carbon fiber is also undergoing development. Antony Dodworth explains further: ‘automotive has one major advantage over flight, because you do not need to meet the same stringent material requirements required for flying.’ Conversely, he explains, ‘unlike in aerospace, you are not always chasing the absolute lightest construction. Often it’s a comparison with a metal competitor, and often low-cost outweighs light-weighting as a priority.’
Making sure that all materials are as lightweight as possible is one of the primary concerns of aerospace manufacturing. Jens Hinrichsen of Aerospace Advisory Group LLC explains how carbon fiber is fulfilling this need, stating that ‘composite applications will deliver a crucial contribution to achievements in reducing weight as well as aerodynamic friction drag, which is the overarching challenge of the future.’
However, carbon fiber faces competition from other material types, such as aluminum and glass/aluminum hybrids. This is due to their relative familiar inspection and repair procedures, future enhancement of fatigue behaviour using bonding technologies, and elimination of widespread fatigue damage through fiber metal laminates.
‘The Aircraft sector continues to grow in orders with several key OEMs having significant backlogs covering some ten years,’ comments Edward G Carson, CEO of GMC2, ‘the industry is growing but incurring significant development costs to meet the changing specifications required by a multitude of market applications.’ Regarding future growth, he argues that the carbon fiber industry can learn from other sectors that have successfully transitioned from supplier to commodity, but warns that ‘the commodity stage is affected by the increasing complexity of enhanced manufacturing productability’.
So what can the carbon fiber industry do to make the most of these new opportunities and combat the associated challenges and issues? Hinrichsen believes that a range of enhancements are necessary, from materials through to research to improvements in inspections and repairs.
Seemingly, carbon fiber is finding its feet in an increasingly mixed material world. As production efficiencies improve and end users gain more experience in managing these structures, carbon fiber will continue to find new applications where it has performance advantages over traditional materials. Dodworth concludes by explaining: ‘all materials have their upside, and cars of the future will be multi-material, using the best material to meet volume and performance’.
Automotive and aerospace end users continue to back this material, and you can hear from them directly and understand why carbon fiber is the best option for lightweight, high strength applications by attending GOCarbonFiber 2013. Held in Seattle on October 8th -10th, the conference will provide further insight into future industry development and feature a range of key speakers from the carbon fiber industry.
CarbonFiber 2013 is taking place very soon in Seattle, WA, USA from October 8 - 10.
For more information visit carbonfiber.com