Captain, how's it going? I've been meaning to speak to you, will send you a PM soon.

I had composite experience in F1/LMP1 before coming to WRC. I have to say, the requirements can be complete opposite. I'm constantly surprised by how much impact and deformation pre-preg autoclave parts can take, given the right materials.

Aside from carbon fibre, which is nice for shiny cosmetic parts in our case but not so much for impact resistance on its own (I know we tried it), we use the following materials in the mix:

Aramid - Kevlar, most people know what this is. Good for impact resistance and also quite flexy.

Zylon - when I was in uni some 10 years ago, this was the "wonder material" we were using for the tether part of the space elevator competition. Now it's rather "common" in the industry, and has a nice balance of properties between Aramid and Carbon - stiff and strong, and also good for abrasion resistance. Must be careful with UV and environmental exposure.

Rubber - Usually in sheets sub-1mm thick, laminated together with other fibres, and vulcanised in-situ when cured. It gives more flexibility, holds **** together when the matrix breaks, and acts as load distributing layer within the laminate, at least according to the FEA.

PET - again, thin sheets if placed on the exposed side of the laminate, provides excellent impact and abrasion resistance, i.e. inner wheelarch of an endurance car.

Then there are materials like Dyneema and thermoforming plastic pre-preg.

I was at JEC Paris this year, and there were quite a few companies with composite stamping process, but one that was particularly interesting used fibre + resin for the main surface and only the resin to create the stiffening rib structure on the backside. So similar to regular injection moulding, but with added fibre reinforcement where fibre can go easily. I thought it was very smart.

But sometimes composite is also used as black aluminium - simply for its formability and marginal weight reduction. That was a bit disappointing to see even at the highest level of the industry, after having learned all the important inter-laminar calculations and fibre orientation etc.

I must be a good thread killer... :(

This is how the titanium-capped composite main blades are made. I'm so very disappointed that hand lamination is still the best we can manage at the moment, albeit with laser projection and other best practices used I'm sure.

I heard recently that Audi, famous for their ULTRA lightweight approach, is already shifting focus away from the traditional CFRP for future development. There is still some ways to go before composites can be widely applied in everyday-car level. Or, we may not get there at all.

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494448141.jpg

Hi Won, all well here, hope you are still enjoying working on puddle jumper car :D WRC is an itch I need to scratch one day so I'm only jealous

Interesting fan blade, learnt a lot watching the first video thanks

Titanium and carbon go together very well and is one of the more common combinations of metallic/composite materials used together in F1 composite parts. The expansion rates of carbon and titanium are a good match and it is possible to easily bond the two materials together.

An F1 carbon floor will sometimes have the outboard front corners protected with a bonded on thin titanium machined capping piece to stop the floor wearing away to dust from the grit and dirt thrown up by the front wheel. As seen below

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494451587.jpg

This is exactly the same concept behind the way the fan blade has been designed and manufactured.

I've used titanium with very good results laminated into all sorts of more complicated composite structures. A gearbox casing is a good example as the titanium can be precision machined so bearings can be pressed in or where a threaded fixing holes is required. Best picture I can find showing this is a gearbox maincase from an Audi Le Mans car, they even went further and used ti for the suspension mounting lugs.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494452021.jpg

Carbon is a great material to use but as with all materials it has its limitations

Probably the number one rule I try and work to when designing composite parts is to keep the carbon simple and put the complexity into the metal. Reason being the carbon plies are hand applied so are have a wider manufacturing tolerance and a finer level of detail can be machined into any metallic inserts or bonded on metallic parts without compromising the stiffness/strength.

I have a friend who is an engineer for SpaceX in Los Angeles. His project is the carbon fiber fairing. I was lucky enough to get a tour of the facility a couple months ago. Really fascinating... the fairing is HUGE!!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494453396.jpg

Please keep the composite race car photos coming... beautiful.

I think there's some carbon in there
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494476717.jpg

It's huge! It's tremendous! It's real! I know a couple of ex-Renault F1 composite guys at SpaceX. I wonder how they work there; these guys would be used to a full lifecycle of design to race possibly in a week or even less. I imagine SpaceX would be not as risk-averse as, say commercial airplane companies, but they still need to worry about not blowing stuff up. Hmm.

Check this one out. It is a model builder's dream - the whole airframe is exactly like a built up balsa RC plane, except everything is bigger and made out of carbon fibre. Everything.

Old one:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494619888.jpg

New one:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494619888.jpg

Mid-build:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494619888.jpg

The next America's Cup starts pretty soon. I really wish I had a chance to see the previous generation (AC72) boats flying around. Composite engineering for wind turbine blades are pretty cool, but these boats are like taking the blades AND the pylon and racing the entire thing in and out of water. It would be really fun to design the wing sales and daggerboards, purely from academic and theoretical point of view. I think Pelican's own Bill Verberg wrote about composite masts from his work, some time ago. Very cool.

Artemis Racing did a Youtube series about the build-up to this year's Cup. It has bits of interesting technical info, if anyone wants to check it out.
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Ok for your materials guys who want to make some $ ...

Pointe shoes.... are $150-300 per pair. And are good for about 8 hours of dancing and then they are only suitable for warm up and "casual" practice for another 8-12 hours of dancing.

They are made on a paper mache core... sweaty feet ruin 'em. Repeated bending and flexing ruin them. Excessive heat (over 100f or so) causes the glues to break down, and ruins 'em.

So some modern material as a core that can be fit into an exterior replaceable for less than $150-per-pop outer. Let it breath, flex and bend and twist.

Go crazy and design a scanning device and 3d print the inner cores custom. Make it so our teenagers can actually outgrow a set of shoes instead of needing a new pair every 4-6 weeks. Or after a 2 showing performance.

Still motorsport related but something a little different, I knew Alastair the 'Artist' as Alastair the 'Chief Mechanic'

He left the F1 team we worked at to pursue his dream of be an engineering sculpture/artist, great to see it is working out well for him.

Carbon artwork at its best and mixed in are real F1 components to make his sculptures that little bit special

His website is worth a look around and there is a cool video of his TV channel commission for Jenson Button's F1 leaving present
Artwork

Aero Manta
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1496095077.jpg
In this shot I can see a wheel nut, rear wing end plates which could easily be a part I designed, hard to tell though :confused:, a hydraulic hose fitting and some other random titanium parts
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1496095077.jpg
Carbon King
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1496095077.jpg
Engineered Hammerhead Shark
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1496095077.jpg
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I love materials but I'm just a dumb metallurgist...

There are a few out there doing huge running sprints with composite prostheses. Seriously - how much good could a cc ballet shoe do? If not performance enhancement, could it help manage the beatings that these dancers' feet get?

It's not F1-sexy or SpaceX-sexy but still...

I'd be happy paying $500 a year for dance shoes vs. $2500. And that is without a "major part" in a production...

Do you have a design or could you send me a PM on where to look?

UAS that was my idea being build in the plant I am the minority owner of. We do great stuff...early fit checks:

Wings Spread

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1497383617.JPG

Wings Folded

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1497383860.JPG

If I told what it is for I I'd have to kill ya:cool:

Cool stuff! Throwing my name in as well as I spent a lot of time laying up aerospace composites for satellite applications during high school and college and designing layup tooling for a few years after that. Mostly autoclaved unidirectional carbon tubes, carbon skin/aluminum honeycomb panels, and kevlar skin/nomex core panels, all with potted fasteners. Had a quick stint doing concept car composite parts & tooling and working on the first set of solar panels that went up on the Dragon capsule trunk for SpaceX.

Would have stayed in the composites industry if there was significant automotive work in Southern California for it.