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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The layers, termed graphene layers, are stacked parallel to each other in a 3D structure. The most common stacking sequence of the layer planes is the hexagonal form with an ABABAB packing sequence.

This way, some atoms (α) have neighbours directly above and below in adjacent planes, while others (β) don’t. The bonding between the layers is van der Waals bonding, so the carbon layers can easily slide with respect to one another.

Due to the difference between the in-plane and out-of-plane bonding, graphite has a high modulus of elasticity parallel to the plane and a low modulus perpendicular to the plane. Thus, graphite is highly anisotropic. The high modulus of a carbon fiber stems from the fact that the carbon layers, though not necessarily flat, tend to be parallel to the fiber axis.

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