Carbon Fiber Knowledge
The latest from the world of advanced composites and carbon fiber technology.
Offshore wind turbines keep growing because longer blades sweep more area and capture more energy without adding proportional tower and drivetrain cost. That growth has reached the point where the spar cap of a blade must carry compressive loads that glass fiber alone can no longer supp
The battery enclosure is the structural and safety backbone of an electric vehicle, protecting the cells in a crash while containing the heat and gas of a thermal runaway event. Automakers increasingly look to carbon fiber to make this structure lighter, because every kilogram saved in
Carbon-carbon (C/C) brake discs are the highest-performance friction and heat-management component in commercial aviation, capable of absorbing the kinetic energy of a landing aircraft at temperatures that would destroy steel brakes. Because carbon fibers and the carbon matrix that bind
Wind energy became the largest single market for carbon fiber in 2025. According to the ATA 2025 annual carbon fiber market report, wind turbine manufacturing consumed 100,000 tonnes of carbon fiber during the year — the first time the segment has crossed six figures, a 127.3% jump over
Carbon fiber prices are rebalancing along two diverging tracks in 2026. At the premium end, Toray announced in 2025 that it would raise prices on carbon fiber and intermediate products by 10-20% from January 2026, citing rising raw material, energy, and logistics costs. At the commodity
The global carbon fiber industry crossed a structural milestone in 2025. The ATA 2025 annual carbon fiber market report records worldwide operating capacity of 326,080 tonnes, and for the first time in the industry's history China accounts for more than half of it: 171,080 tonnes, or 52
Assembling a modern aircraft wing or fuselage means drilling hundreds of thousands of holes through stacked CFRP and titanium layers, typically Ti-6Al-4V against a carbon fiber laminate. The operation sounds simple, but it confronts the machinist with a contradiction: titanium is tough
Every mechanical joint in a carbon fiber structure represents a compromise. A pure adhesive bond is load-efficient and fatigue-tolerant but vulnerable to peel stress and long-term environmental degradation. A pure bolted joint resists peel and is inspectable and repairable, but concentr
Every cured carbon fiber part carries the geometric signature of the tool it was cured on. During an autoclave cure at 180°C, the tool and the part expand at different rates: a metal tool grows with temperature, while a CFRP part grows only slightly in-plane because its reinforcement ho