Greetings all!
I’m new to composites, I’m an avid cyclist actually (ultramarathons or so-called brevets)
I want to make myself a streamliner:
http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/Plans/how_to_build_a_streamliner.htm
Since I live in Russia and not exactly rich even by rather low local standards, I’ll be using locally made stuff like epoxy from Epital and basalt fiber (not exactly carbon, but still a notch up glass fiber, while being only a bit more expencive)… however, I’ll be needing a layer for abrasion/impact resistance - in case I’ll of going down at high speed or collision with a car.
One of my fellow ultra-cyclists died due to a collision with a car pretty recently, and there are other pretty scary stories of close calls and injuries of varying severity… I think having a sturdy fairing to protect me will likely cover most unfortunate accidents save being run over by a runaway truck, heh.
I’ve been considering Dacron (PET or Lavsan as it is known locally), however it is known for not bonding with epoxy very well. After looking around for alternatives I’ve found out that ‘spray on truck bedliners’ are actually polyurea coatings, and they are extremely good at what they do - provide abrasion and impact resistance, and adhere very good to prepped surfaces (using peel ply on mould side will likely provide one).
One 1mm thick x 1 m2 layer of polyurea coating costs about 1/2 of 1 m2 kevlar sheet, for instance, so it seems pretty cost-effective. More thickness is available and scales pretty well in price (2x thickness is only about 1.5 more expensive)
So, my plan is to make a few layers of basalt, and than apply polyurea coating.
So, my question to anyone who is familiar with this stuff:
How many layers of basalt should I use and coating thickness to go with it?
I weight about 95 kgs, total weight of streamliner would be about 20, give or take. Speeds on mild downhills would likely exceed 100 kmh, and collisions with traffic are likely… but I’d like to minimise weight (and costs) because I’ll be using my own legs to haul it around for hundreds of kilometres, including steep inclines.