There are several production processes for carbon fiber tubes, of which 2 processes, coiling and molding, produce carbon fiber tubes with better performance. Carbon fiber coiled tubes are made by rolling stacked carbon fiber prepregs onto molds through equipment and then molding them using a hot press oven. Can carbon fiber coiled tubing exceed steel pipe in strength and can it be used in place of steel pipe?
Who is stronger, carbon fiber coiled pipe or steel pipe?
Carbon fiber is oxidized at a high temperature of thousands of degrees Celsius, and a chemical reaction occurs during the oxidation process, which makes it have super strong tensile strength. Ordinary grade carbon fiber may have a tensile strength of more than 3,000 MPa, and high-strength carbon fiber performs better. The tensile strength of carbon fiber composite material composed with resin material can exceed 1500MPa, carbon fiber coiled tube is made of carbon fiber composite material.
Commonly used steel pipe tensile strength is about 600MPa, carbon fiber coiled tube in tensile strength is 2.5 times, the performance is very good. In part of the industry carbon fiber coiled tube can replace the steel pipe to use, but carbon fiber coiled tube itself wear resistance is general, toughness is poor, there are these requirements for the use of the case is unable to replace the steel pipe. In addition, the price of carbon fiber coiled tube is also several times the steel pipe, many companies will therefore choose to continue to use steel pipe.
What are the other performance advantages of carbon fiber tube?
1, low density and light weight: the density of carbon fiber coiled tube is about 1.7g/cm3 or so, lower than the glass fiber tube 2.2g/cm3 and aluminum alloy tube 2.7g/cm3, commonly used steel tube density is 7.8g/cm3, so a comparison can be found, carbon fiber coiled tube in the lightweight has a huge advantage.
2, high bending shear modulus: carbon fiber coiled tube shear modulus is also very good, after testing, bending shear modulus theory is 8.63GPa, measured 8.46GPa.
3, high tensile modulus: tensile modulus can test the fiber can withstand the maximum tensile force, the unit is psi, less than 34.8 million psi for low modulus carbon fiber, ultra-high modulus carbon fiber tensile elasticity modulus of 72.5 million -145 million psi, steel tensile modulus is about 29 million psi, the carbon fiber material performance is better.
4, durability advantage: carbon fiber coiled tube is a non-metallic material, electrochemical activity is low, has good corrosion resistance, while the problem of oxidation will not occur, but also has a certain degree of impact resistance, the coefficient of thermal expansion of almost zero, the combination of these factors determines the durability of carbon fiber coiled tube better.
Carbon fiber coiled tube in a variety of performance is indeed better than steel pipe, but the low production and processing difficulty of steel pipe, coupled with the amount of raw materials is much higher than carbon fiber composite materials, so even if the future of carbon fiber material technology has a major breakthrough, want to completely replace the steel pipe is also almost unlikely to achieve.
