Carbon Fiber Knowledge
The latest from the world of advanced composites and carbon fiber technology.
Ireland is a small country with an outsized role in global industry. It hosts Europe's largest medical device manufacturing cluster, a deep aerospace leasing and MRO presence anchored by Shannon, and some of the world's highest-density data center capacity. Each of these sectors has a g
Carbon fiber composites are entering a regulatory moment their makers never planned for. For thirty years, the industry optimized for performance and weight, treating scrap and end-of-life parts as a disposal afterthought. That is no longer tenable in the European Union. Reported in 202
South Africa holds a distinctive position in the global carbon fiber market. As the continent's most industrialized economy, it operates the deepest mining sector in Africa, the largest electricity grid south of the Sahara, and one of the most capable defense industrial bases on the con
Two materials dominate the modern airframe material conversation. The first is the fiber metal laminate (FML) family, led by GLARE — alternating layers of thin aluminum sheet and unidirectional glass-fiber prepreg — proven since 2007 as the upper fuselage skin of the Airbus A380. The se
Carbon fiber composites are excellent to use and difficult to cut. The same properties that make a carbon fiber plate strong — hard, abrasive fibers embedded in a tough resin matrix — also make it destructive to conventional tooling. A CNC router cutting carbon fiber wears its carbide o
In aerospace assembly, carbon fiber parts are rarely finished when they leave the autoclave. They must be drilled, countersunk, and bolted together to form wings, fuselage panels, and control surfaces — and every drilled hole is a potential defect site. Delamination, the separation of p
Carbon fiber structures are prized for their strength-to-weight ratio, but when a laminate suffers impact damage, a barely visible delamination can grow into a flight-critical defect. Bolted patch repairs add weight and introduce new stress concentrations, which defeats the purpose of a
Industrial rollers — the long, hollow cylinders over which film, paper, packaging, and coated substrates travel — are among the most common wear and weight items in continuous web processing. On a wide film line, a steel or aluminum roll several meters long can sag under its own weight,
The car body is the primary structure of every passenger train. It carries passenger mass, transfers structural load, and in a collision it is the first line of defense between the occupants and the impact. It is also heavy: on a typical metro or intercity train the body accounts for ro