Essay On Carbon Fibre

Carbon fibre

Introduction of Carbon fibre In 1963 a team of British scientists, W. Watt, W. Johnson and L.N. Phillips, working at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, U.K., developed techniques for producing carbon fibres of high strength and outstanding rigidity. These fibres were in commercial production by 1968 and have since become of great importance, especially in the field of composites in which the fibres are embedded in resins or other materials. Most of the important textile fibres in use today are derived from organic polymers, i.e., polymers in which the backbone of the molecular structure consists of carbon atoms to which are attached atoms of other elements, commonly hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. It has long been known that pyrolysis of these fibres, such as rayon, could result in the removal of the non-carbon atoms to leave a filament consisting essentially of carbon. But the carbon atoms in these filaments are arranged in more or less disordered forms; the structure is amorphous rather than crystalline, and the filaments are weak and of little practical value. To achieve high strength and modulus, it was necessary to devise a process for producing carbon fibres which would orientate the carbon atoms and

Applications lie very largely in the field of composites for specialized uses, where the high cost of carbon fibre relative to steel, fiberglass, and other reinforcing fibres is of minimal consequence. Carbon fibre composites are used, for example, in aircraft structural components, in brakes and engines. They have proved of immense value in space vehicles, where weight reduction is at a premium. As carbon fibres become cheaper with increased production, they are finding their way steadily into more mundane applications such as golf-club shafts, fishing rods, boats and submarines, pressure vessels in the chemical and allied