BMW And Boeing In Carbon Fiber Alliance
BMW and Boeing will share know-how about making carbon fiber. BMW says it signed a collaboration agreement “to participate in joint research for carbon fiber recycling as well as share manufacturing knowledge and explore automation opportunities.”
Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is 50 percent made of carbon fiber material. With the release of the BMW i3 in late 2013, followed later by the BMW i8, the BMW Group will bring two vehicles with a carbon passenger cell onto the market. BMW is heavily invested in industry leader SGL.
Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is 30 percent lighter than aluminum and 50 percent lighter than steel, a key factor to help cut vehicle weight and fuel consumption. CFRP has an unsurpassed strength-to-stiffness-to-weight ratio. CFRP also is extremely expensive, mainly due to its long cycle time. A press can crank out metal car parts in mere seconds, a CFRP part can take many hours to cure. Making CFRP affordable and suitable for mass production is the big challenge.
CFRP technology also is rumored to be part of BMW’s alliance with Toyota. Toyota has developed significant carbon fiber expertise in-house. The Lexus LFA supercar is made from 65 percent carbon fiber and 35 percent aluminum. However, the buzzle at LFA Works is dying down, with the last LFAs leaving the factory as we write this. From what we are hearing, there is no follow-up work in the LFA Works just yet.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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“Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is 30 percent lighter than aluminum and 50 percent lighter than steel” Typical density of aluminum is 65% less than typical steel density. Typical density of CFRP is 30% less than aluminum and 75% less than steel. Now if you could make car bodies out of aerogels, you'd be all set because that stuff is 99.975% less dense than steel. That's the gotcha with comparing density directly. What you need is a comparison of the overall weight of structures made of different materials that accomplish the same goals for stiffness and strength (and for car bodies, I guess crushability and a bunch of other things too). I'd also guess that we still know more about how to get steel or aluminum to do what we want than CFRP so there is room for improvement.
Best and brightest: is the future of cars - especially in markets with high gas prices, such as Western Europe - in carbon fiber vehicles?
i guess the CF have improved greatly, 20 some yrs ago those CF built front fork for racing bikes ( made by Look, that was cutting edge then ) , they suffer breakage so rendered these racing bikes pretty unsafe! Or soon as the Ruskies stop doing the arms, planes race with USA, the price & demand of Titanium greatly dropped, so as Ti MTB and road bikes prices do dropped considerably.
Car and Driver is reporting the next Corvette will use CRF panels to stiffen its aluminum structural tub. Structural carbon fiber on a $60k car! (They're also promising 450 hp and 3,000 curb weight. And 30 mpg. Yowza, ain't technolgy fun?)