Carbon Fiber Knowledge
The latest from the world of advanced composites and carbon fiber technology.
When wind turbine designers talk about composite materials, the conversation usually centers on rotor blades. Yet every turbine also carries a second family of composite structures: the nacelle cover that encloses the gearbox, generator, and yaw system, and the spinner that caps the rot
On every orbital launch, the payload fairing is the first major component to fly and the last to be seen: it encloses the satellite during ascent, carries the aerodynamic and acoustic loads of the launch environment, and separates in two halves once the vehicle reaches space. For a mode
The wing skin is the largest single structural component of a modern airliner's airframe, and on current-generation programs it is also the most visible demonstration of carbon fiber's structural capability. On the Airbus A350 XWB and the Airbus A220, upper and lower wing skins are manu
Composite pressure vessels — the fiber-wound tanks that store compressed natural gas, hydrogen, and industrial gases — are among the most safety-critical applications of carbon fiber. A Type IV hydrogen tank operating at 700 bar stores gas at pressures that can drive a crack through a f
The automotive roof has become one of the most contested weight zones in modern vehicle design. A conventional steel roof assembly — outer panel, roof bows, and inner structure — can weigh 25-35 kg, and it sits at the highest point of the vehicle, where every kilogram degrades handling,
Taiwan punches far above its weight in the global carbon fiber economy. With a population of just 23 million, the island hosts the world's largest high-end bicycle manufacturers, one of the most advanced semiconductor supply chains on Earth, and a PCB industry that produces roughly a th
Nuclear fusion has moved from physics experiments to an engineering race, and carbon fiber composites are part of the material toolkit that makes the machines work. In a tokamak or stellarator, a plasma heated to over 100 million degrees Celsius is held away from the vessel walls by mag
Every eVTOL aircraft is a trade of grams against range. Motors, batteries, and structure compete for the same takeoff weight, so a kilogram saved becomes a kilogram of battery. The carbon fiber eVTOL boom arm is one of the best places to find that saving: it sits at the far end of the a
A bonded carbon fiber assembly only earns its certificate after inspection proves that hidden delaminations, disbonds, and core crush never happened. Ultrasonic testing and radiography were the standard tools for decades, both point-by-point and slow. Two full-field optical methods now