[Won]

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.