Hey Ya'll, I'm a first timer here.
I'm a senior of Aerospace engineering at Auburn University currently working on my level 2. I'm not alone, it seems like half our class wants to make them all at the same time for some reason (-_-), but I have a few questions regarding the process of laying up carbon fiber tubes. We have a 3 and a 4 inch diameter mandrels, and have made a few of them already, but the quality of the tube varies wildly, and I can't figure out why.
First we used vacuum bags in an autoclave, that turned out really REALLY bad, it caused the carbon fiber to bunch up on itself horribly, and bound it so tightly to the aluminium mandrels that they had to be chiseled off. Now we wrap the mandrels in Teflon, then the carbon fiber rolled up like paper, then another layer of Teflon to prevent the resin from leaking out into the oven. We have them in the oven for 2 hours, rotating the tube every 30 mins to keep the resin from accumulating at the bottom. It still accumulates to an extent, we've gone through quite a lot of CF just to get where we are now quality-wise, but there's definitely still room for improvement. Do you guys know of a sure-fire way of getting perfect tubes every time? I'm considering using hose clamps and thin aluminium sheets wrapped around the outer Teflon layer next, no idea how that will turn out.
I'm sure there are many ways of doing it, but any useful tips will be MUCH appreciated. Thanks!
I'm a senior of Aerospace engineering at Auburn University currently working on my level 2. I'm not alone, it seems like half our class wants to make them all at the same time for some reason (-_-), but I have a few questions regarding the process of laying up carbon fiber tubes. We have a 3 and a 4 inch diameter mandrels, and have made a few of them already, but the quality of the tube varies wildly, and I can't figure out why.
First we used vacuum bags in an autoclave, that turned out really REALLY bad, it caused the carbon fiber to bunch up on itself horribly, and bound it so tightly to the aluminium mandrels that they had to be chiseled off. Now we wrap the mandrels in Teflon, then the carbon fiber rolled up like paper, then another layer of Teflon to prevent the resin from leaking out into the oven. We have them in the oven for 2 hours, rotating the tube every 30 mins to keep the resin from accumulating at the bottom. It still accumulates to an extent, we've gone through quite a lot of CF just to get where we are now quality-wise, but there's definitely still room for improvement. Do you guys know of a sure-fire way of getting perfect tubes every time? I'm considering using hose clamps and thin aluminium sheets wrapped around the outer Teflon layer next, no idea how that will turn out.
I'm sure there are many ways of doing it, but any useful tips will be MUCH appreciated. Thanks!