Horacio understood the high potential of composite-material-based systems and, in particular, carbon fiber while making the Countach Evoluzione at Lamborghini. He tried to persuade Lamborghini to buy an autoclave so they could extend the production of the carbon parts. They refused, saying that Ferrari did not have an autoclave, so Lamborghini didn’t need one.

He then borrowed capital to buy his own autoclave late in 1987 and then, in 1991, he broke away from the company and founded his own consultancy called Modena Design which started to make carbon fiber composites for Formula One cars and clients like Daimler and Ferrari. A couple of years later, he founded Pagani Automobili.

The result couldn’t be any different: The pulsating heart of Pagani craftsmanship is enshrined within one of its signature features and is the first thing that strikes you when you see a Zonda or a Huayra: the carbon fiber front hood with its herringbone weave pattern, a symbol not only of technical research but also a quest for aesthetics!

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The extraordinary growth in the use of advanced composites (especially fiber reinforced plastics) is justified by their impressive features and properties, such as amazing strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios, high static strength, good fatigue/damage resistance, excellent dimensional stability under a wide range of temperatures, and many others.

This graph shows how composite usage in aircraft has increased over the years. How high can we get? Will we ever reach 100%? Let us know your opinion in the comments!

Bibliographical Reference:

Advanced Composite Materials for Aerospace Engineering – Processing, Properties and Applications, Page 2.

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original 1953 Corvette was the first »mass-produced» automobile to use fiberglass-reinforced plastic parts. Every Corvette since has featured a composite-material body.

Fiberglass was first considered for use on a GM vehicle by legendary designer Harley Earl. Besides being an exotic choice for the early Fifties and having an undeniable weight advantage, fiberglass offered an economical way to create the low-volume Corvette without the expense of large sheet metal stamping dies.

Starting with the third generation in 1968, the body parts were manufactured with a press mold process. It was a significant advancement in forming technology and laid the groundwork for a change in the body panels’ material in 1973. That year, the composition changed from conventional fiberglass to sheet-molded composite, or SMC, which was composed of fiberglass, resin, and a catalyst formed under high heat and pressure. The new material helped produce panels that were smoother right out of the mold, resulting in higher-quality paint finishes.

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Once all the air has been removed from the bag and the reinforcement has been fully compressed under this pressure, liquid resin (mixed with hardener) is introduced to the reinforcement through a pipe which then infuses through the reinforcement under the vacuum pressure. Once the resin has fully infused through the reinforcement, the supply of resin is cut off and the resin is left to cure, still under vacuum pressure.

This video shows an 82 feet Viking yacht’s hull being infused last year!

Video credits: Galati Yachts

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»Since Apollo, advanced composites have evolved by leaps and bounds, and have played a significant role in space programs with use in launch vehicles, the space shuttle, satellites, space telescopes, and the International Space Station.»

Awesome article by CompositesWorld! A thoroughly recommended read!

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According to Fokker, fiber metal laminates with these bi-directional reinforcements are ideal to withstand the forces in fuselage skin. Implementation of such a new structural principle takes years. Intensive testing did demonstrate that GLARE features good impact and corrosion resistance. Since it is aluminum it can deal with lightning strikes and because of the glass fibers, it is quite good at containing flames in case of fire. The composite in between aluminum blocks corrosion as well. A very important advantage is that its production assembly and repair do not really differ from that of aluminum. All these benefits come with an extra plus: Glare’s density is about 10% lower than that of aluminum.

GLARE entered major application in 2007 when the Airbus A380 airliner began commercial service.

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After that, each generation of new aircraft built by Boeing had an increased percentage of composite material usage. Today, for most commercial aircraft applications, carbon fiber-based composites are now the leading materials on the market.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the first major commercial airplane to have a composite fuselage, composite wings, and use composites in most other airframe components. This aircraft is 80% composite by volume! By weight, the material contents are 50% composite, 20% aluminum, 15% titanium, 10% steel, and 5% other.

Each Boeing 787 aircraft contains approximately 32,000 kg of CFRP composites, made with 23 tons of carbon fiber! Composites are used on the fuselage, wings, tail, doors, and interior.

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We think about carbon fiber composites as very stiff, however, as the authors suggest, when this material is manufactured thin enough, it can withstand very high deformations! The resulting high tensile and compressive strains require accurate modeling of the fiber-dominated non-linear effects to predict the mechanical response.

These thin, unidirectional carbon fiber composite shells can be folded to impressively small bending radii without failure. The ability to elastically sustain and recover large deformations makes these materials highly beneficial for applications like deployable space structures, future medical devices, or shape adaptable meta-materials.

Interested in learning more about this topic? Here is the link to the publication: https://lnkd.in/e_ywKNZ

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During the development stage, the company faced several problems with the torsional stiffness of the aluminum honeycomb chassis. The prototype chassis was losing a fifth of its torsional stiffness after 30,000 kilometers of testing, and the test drivers were noticing poor vehicle handling. To solve this problem, Bugatti invested in a new carbon fiber chassis that was developed and supplied by Aerospatiale, giving the car the stiffness it needed to achieve its performance targets. History was made when the EB 110 became the first production car to have a carbon fiber monocoque.

Another version of the EB 110 was also released. Named »Super Sport», this variant was lighter than the original by 150 kg. This was achieved by the use of carbon fiber body panels on the exterior and in the interior.

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»Theorizing that pristine graphene may be a better additive than CNTs and GO for PAN-based carbon fibers, researchers added a small amount of shear-exfoliated pristine graphene (0.01 to 1.0 wt %) to a PAN/dimethyl sulfoxide solution to fine-tune the properties of the PAN spinning dope. Results showed that PAN/graphene-based carbon fibers with 0.075 wt % graphene exhibited a tensile strength of 1916 MPa and Young’s modulus of 233 GPa — a 225% increase in strength and 184% increase in modulus compared to PAN carbon fibers without graphene.»

Check out the full research and article using these links:

https://lnkd.in/eemWMyF

https://lnkd.in/ez-_QbV

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