Carbon piston....

Off Topic Everything un-related to composites.
#1

I was at one of my dealers today and bumped into Bob Sherman (formally of Pasadena Art and Design center school and many other automotive & composites schools) and since I was the one that connected him with this dealer (has donated space for Bob and his team to construct a 3 wheel car to try to drive from the West coast to the East coast on one tank of gas…I forgot how big of a tank but it is very small) and he showed me a full carbon piston! It really looked cool and you couldn’t punch a hole in the top running very lean mixtures unlike Alum.

Of course, I forgot my digital camera at home…maybe next week if I get back up there…

#2

:shock: :stuck_out_tongue: I gotta have a look see ! Can you get any information on the environment it was made in ? Autoclave only or a direct forging ? What weave and such. Sounds like one heck of a way to lighten up rotational mass and detonation damage ! 8)
…Vince

#3

Could you just imagine having a set of those attatched to some titanium rods and a fully counter weighted crank in a RB26 DETT ? That would spin to the Stratosfere ! lol. :twisted: 8)

#4

Okay that is very cool! I wonder if that is being used in F1 or MotoGP? That would be very cool if you can get some pics of that piston. :slight_smile:

#5

wasn’t it the porsche 959 that came with these stock? if not the 959, one of the high end porsches

#6

Hmm. I would like to see these. Question is how do you connect it to a rod? How on earth would you mount the pin. It seems like you would need some metal in there but how do you compensate for for the expansion of dissimilar materials. If these could ever be made and last a while they would make a ton of money. I wonder what resin you would use to take that type of heat and what detonation might do to the surface of the resin on top. Maybe this piston was made the same way clutch disks are made.

#7

google? http://www.warwick.ac.uk/atc/cda/projects/piston.html

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=carbon+piston

#8

honda has had a carbon engine in the works for some time know
they were having trouble with the stress in parts of the crank,

That must be some pritty good resin…

#9

No mention was given about the piston being made from carbon fiber. It’s most likely a carbon/carbon piece, just like the brake rotors and clutches available already.

#10

I think if they can make the piston from carbon then why not the rod also? Carbon/Carbon is used in rotors so it is very likely to see whole motors made from the same/similar process.

#11

Ford in the IMSA or some unlimited racing series had complete polymer (plastic) engines ad I bet most of it was carbon!

First
On
Race
Day

or in my case of last Sunday night:
Found
On
Road
Dead

:smiley:

#12

or is it

Friken
Old
Recycled
Dodge

#13

Carefull, I have a LONG list of these…
Four
Old
Rusty
Doors

…amoung other makes too! I should compile them and post them here.:eek:

Cheap
Heavy
Experimental
Vehicle
Runs
On
Luck
Every
Time

Chevy, Chevy are the best…drive a mile and walk the rest…

#14

Move
Over
People
Are
Racing

#15

Fucked
Over
Rebuilt
Dodge

Fix
Or
Repair
Daily

(and FORD in reverse)
Driver
Returns
On
Foot

Poor
Old
N*%#$
Thinks
Its
A
Cadillac

#16

that pontiac one made me laugh!

#17

Pontiac was (I think) Jessie Jackson’s Secret Service code word to cover him! He knew of it and didn’t care that was the word for him!

But there’s another cleaner one for Pontiac too…I have a LONG list of every manufactures and I need to compile them first on a 'puter to print and post them!

#18

In the mid 70s NASA was cutting back, so a polymer engineer finding some time on his hands developed some engine components.

Pistons, rods, valves that looked a lot like the material shown above. The advantage was the obvious lighter than aluminum and stronger than steel. It was made with layers so the theory was if a crack developed, It would stop crawling as soon as it hit the first layer and begin travelling lengthwise.

Don’t know whatever happened to it but was interesting. The engineer was involved with the design of the different stages ejected through the launch process at NASA