Intro­duc­tion to car­bon fiber

Car­bon fiber is main­ly com­posed of car­bon ele­ments, with high tem­per­a­ture resis­tance, fric­tion resis­tance, heat con­duc­tiv­i­ty and cor­ro­sion resis­tance, etc., the shape is fibrous and soft, with a diam­e­ter of only 5 microns, which is equiv­a­lent to 10 to 12 times the strength of a human hair, but the strength is more than 4 times that of alu­minum alloy.

Intro­duc­tion to the prop­er­ties of Car­bon Fiber

1) The spe­cif­ic grav­i­ty is light, the den­si­ty is 1/4 of steel, and 1/2 of alu­minum alloy;

2) High strength, ten­sile strength is more than 3500 MPa, and the spe­cif­ic strength is 10 times that of steel;

3) High mod­u­lus, elas­tic mod­u­lus above 230 GPa;

4) Ultra-high tem­per­a­ture resis­tance, under non-oxi­diz­ing atmos­phere con­di­tions, can be used at 2000°C;

5) Low tem­per­a­ture resis­tance, at a low tem­per­a­ture of ‑180°C, car­bon fiber is still elas­tic;

6) Strong acid resis­tance, oil resis­tance, cor­ro­sion resis­tance and dura­bil­i­ty;

7) The coef­fi­cient of ther­mal expan­sion is small, the ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty is large, it is resis­tant to quench­ing and quench­ing, and it will not explode even if the high tem­per­a­ture drops from 3000°C to room tem­per­a­ture sud­den­ly;

8) Good abra­sion resis­tance;

9) Good elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Car­bon fiber and 3D Print­ing

At present, there are two types of car­bon fiber parts man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy on the mar­ket, in addi­tion to the hot com­pres­sion mold­ing method intro­duced ear­li­er, and anoth­er way is to use car­bon fiber rein­force­ment mate­ri­als in 3D print­ing.

Com­pared to tra­di­tion­al meth­ods, car­bon fiber 3D print­ing can help opti­mize designs, achieve com­plex exter­nal shapes and inter­nal lat­tice struc­tures, and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce man­u­fac­tur­ing cycle times and costs. Ide­al for low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of high-strength, light­weight com­po­nents.

Car­bon fiber 3D print­ing is divid­ed into chopped fiber and con­tin­u­ous fiber print­ing.

1) Chopped fiber print­ing

The process involves dis­pers­ing chopped car­bon fibers in ther­mo­plas­tics, form­ing mixed pow­ders or extrud­ing them into wires, which are then shaped using tech­nolo­gies such as SLS, FDM or MJF. It improves the over­all stiff­ness and strength of the mate­r­i­al and achieves excel­lent sur­face fin­ish, cor­ro­sion resis­tance and heat resis­tance.

2) Con­tin­u­ous fiber print­ing

Con­tin­u­ous fiber print­ing uses the FDM process, in which con­tin­u­ous car­bon fibers are embed­ded in a stan­dard ther­mo­plas­tic sub­strate. Con­tin­u­ous car­bon fiber not only increas­es strength, but also pro­vides users with selec­tive rein­force­ment in areas where high­er dura­bil­i­ty is required.

It can choose lay­er-by-lay­er base rein­force­ment, so con­cen­tric axi­al rein­force­ment and isotrop­ic rein­force­ment can be obtained. Con­cen­tric fills strength­en the out­er bound­aries of each lay­er (inner and out­er) and extend into the part with a user-defined num­ber of cycles. Isotrop­ic fill­ing forms a uni­di­rec­tion­al com­pos­ite rein­force­ment on each lay­er, and car­bon fiber weav­ing can be sim­u­lat­ed by vary­ing the direc­tion of rein­force­ment on the lay­er. These strength­en­ing strate­gies allow com­pos­ites to effec­tive­ly sim­u­late met­al prop­er­ties.

With the improve­ment of pro­cess­ing tech­nol­o­gy and the bless­ing of advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy, the price of car­bon fiber is no longer unat­tain­able. Believ­ing that it will enter more indus­tries with its excel­lent per­for­mance in the future, Pro­to­soon has a com­plete car­bon fiber part man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing 3D print­ing and hot press mold­ing, con­tact us will help you under­stand car­bon fiber and explore more pos­si­bil­i­ties.