Today's KNOWLEDGE Share : CARBON FIBER

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

CARBON FIBER HISTORY:

Commercially available carbon fibers are based on one of three precursor materials --> rayon, PAN (polyacrylonitrile) and pitch. Early research in each of these carbon fiber types dates back to the late 1950s. Rayon, converted into a carbon fiber, was found to deliver the strongest and stiffest material for its weight that had ever been produced.

By 1963, Curry Ford and Charles Mitchell were granted a patent for making fibers and cloths by heat treating rayon to temperatures up to 3000 °C. These were the strongest carbon fibers commercially produced to date and led to the entry of carbon fibers into the “advanced composites” industry.

Research in converting more efficient precursors was occurring simultaneously in both Japan and the U.K. Akio Shindo of the Government Industrial Research Institute in Osaka, Japan made fibers in his lab with a modulus of more than 140 GPa, about three times that of the rayon-based fibers produced in the U.S.

In 1963, scientists in the U.K. also patented the process for producing even higher modulus PAN-based carbon fibers. The secret behind these quickly improving carbon fibers was the access to pure PAN which is the polymeric backbone that provided an excellent yield after processing.

source:Tom Haulik-HEXCEL