Maybe some guys are curious how we make rolled wrap carbon fiber tubes? In this article, you will know the answer.
As we all know, carbon fiber tube is made of carbon fiber cloth under high temperature and high pressure. In the market, some suppliers produce carbon fiber pipe via pultrusion while other via open mold (in other word is roll wrap technology). Although the final product in your hand is carbon fiber tube no matter what method the supplier use, the quality is not the same.
Explained below are the materials and processes used in the tutorial.
1. According to the size you need to open the Mold.
Normally, we will use steel to make metal mandrels. other materials such as aluminum are also ok. (Although aluminum has a high coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and makes it well-suited to the roll wrapping process, it doesn't last as long as steel)
The starting point is to have a metal mandrel of the correct diameter for the size tube that you want to create. Once you have a correctly sized mandrel, ensure it is completely clean and as smooth as possible to aid with extraction.
2. Prepreg carbon fiber
We firstly use several layers of unidirectional prepreg (the number of layers depends on wall thickness) and finished with a final layer of woven prepreg on the outside of the tube.
Carbon fiber tubes on the market are usually arranged in 0° axis and 90 axis which is known as hoop strength to the tube, making the tube less vulnerable to crush or burst forces and splintering.
Altering the layup to include more or less woven layers or by changing or alternating the orientation of the unidirectional plies allows the performance of the tube to be precisely optimized for its specific use. For example, a tube for a prop-shaft will encounter primarily torsional forces and so the unidirectional fiber can be aligned off-axis, at 45° for example, specifically to handle these forces.
3. Composites shrink tape
After the prepreg carbon fibre reinforcement has been wrapped around the mandrel as tightly as possible, tightly wrapped with composites shrink tape to provide further consolidation. The most important point is to ensure there is lot of overlap. in this way will provide much more consolidation pressure when the tape contracts during the cure.
4. Oven cure
At the right temperature, place in an oven with plenty of room to cure for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The full carbon fiber tube is then separated from the mandrel with a release agent.