
Carbon fibre makes Australian debut - nreece
http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2017/Carbon-fibre-makes-Australian-debut
======
nullsandwich
Currently, Boeing can not replace the 737 with a Carbon Fiber plane because
there isn't enough Carbon Fiber produced on earth to keep up with the
production line completing three aircraft a day. However, if enough Carbon
Fibre could be created to logistically allow Boeing to move away from aluminum
I am sure you would see a whole new level of demand for Carbon Fibre. Needless
to say, the Carbon Fibre created would need to met Boeing spec, as Carbon
Fibre does not have a single global quality standard, unlike aluminum (thank
you WWII).

~~~
chillydawg
Why wouldn't Boeing make their own? They certainly have the money, the
experience and the time to invest in such a technology if it is as critical to
their success as you suggest.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Probably doesn't scale as well as aluminium; it'd be a lot more expensive to
produce, as carbon fiber is very labor intensive. It's the same reason why
Apple isn't likely to switch to ceramic phone bodies - the aluminimum milling
facilities are already scaled up to extreme levels, with hundreds if not
thousands of machines milling aluminium to keep up with demands.

~~~
lumisota
see: [http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-
be-...](http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic)

------
agentgt
I grew up dinghy sailing in Maine and some of the more affluent kids would
have carbon fibre parts on their dinghies.

I remember going to one of the shipyards (I think Vanguard... I can't recall)
and watching them make carbon fibre parts. I was rather shocked how labor
intensive it is. Maybe not labor intensive is the right word but it just takes
a long time to make a single pole or mast.

If I recall you take long sheets of carbon fibre and wrap around a mold and
wait a little bit and then cure it. You have to do this like 40 times.

I am probably missing a bunch of details as I was fairly young but I do
remember it takes a long time to make carbon fibre parts.

So even if carbon fibre is produced at scale the molding and producing of
actual parts probably has to be sped up as well?

~~~
matthewmcg
Similar experience, but in Florida. At least for most of the one-design
classes, the total weight of the boats and the dimensions of the important
parts was set by class rules to pretty narrow tolerances regardless of
construction materials.

Of course with better composites you got more stiffness and could also put the
weight in the most advantageous position.

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gene-h
Sure, the fiber itself maybe cheap, but processing that fiber into different
shapes still costs a fair amount of money. Carbon fiber layup is still a
fairly labor intensive and somewhat wasteful process.

~~~
jordanb
Layup is very expensive and labor intensive yes. And most layup methods
require expensive jigs.

You also have to use expensive, stiff epoxy resin if you want to have the
mechanical properties of carbon fiber. Fiberglass is typically laid up in
cheaper polyester resin since glass fiber are stretchier than carbon fiber.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Fiberglass is typically laid up in cheaper polyester resin since glass
> fiber are stretchier than carbon fiber_

Would you mind expanding on that? I'm curious around the barriers to mass-
produced carbon fiber.

~~~
jordanb
Carbon fiber _can_ be laid up in polyester resin but it doesn't make sense to
not match capabilities between the resin and the reinforcement.

A glass fiber/polyester panel will be no worse than a carbon fiber/polyester
panel. So if you choose polyester you'd be a fool to use a reinforcement more
expensive than glass fiber.

So as a practical matter, the decision to use carbon fiber reinforcement
implies the use of epoxy resin.

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brudgers
The surprise I felt regarding carbon fiber production coming to Australia
constituting news in 2017 reminded me of Gibson's law: The future is already
here -- it's just not very evenly distributed.

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CaliforniaKarl
The is interesting timing!

The 2017 Formula 1 season gets underway in Melbourne on March 26[1]. Formula 1
regularly uses some of the most advanced technology[2], and they make heavy
use of carbon fibre. Since this was patented, the methods etc. should now be
public. So, once the licensing stuff is worked out, F1's carbon fibre
suppliers can rework their

The benefit to F1 is in teams being able to apply changes faster, taking
lessons learned from Melbourne and applying them as quickly as possible,
without having to wait as long as they do now for new parts to be constructed.

I'm looking forward to this!

[1]:
[https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/headlines/2016/11/f1-fia-...](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/headlines/2016/11/f1-fia-
confirms-2017-calendar.html) [2]: At least, what they can get away with! Some
examples from the past:
[http://www.redbull.com/us/en/motorsports/f1/stories/13316206...](http://www.redbull.com/us/en/motorsports/f1/stories/1331620648540/5-technical-f1-innovations)

~~~
metaphor
> ...without having to wait as long as they do now for new parts to be
> constructed.

The comment implies that the time it takes for prototype teams to respin is
largely driven by the availability of raw materials...I'm simply not following
the logic.

~~~
Neliquat
On occasion, sourcing specialty materials is truly the issue in racing. When
race season starts, many fluids, and composite products are sold out for
months. Many are very bespoke to racing and aerospace, so lead time may be
years. Using our own processes and layup is often as much about availability
as function. For F1 budgets, this may be less of an issue.

~~~
metaphor
> For F1 budgets, this may be less of an issue.

That's the lingering thought in the back of my mind that kept me on the
skeptical side. Thanks for chiming in.

------
Someone
_" The wet spinning line machinery takes a sticky mix of precursor chemicals
and turns it into five hundred individual strands of fibre, each thinner than
a human hair."_

Even if I am willing to believe they are actually counting the strands (could
be the case, especially if they are really long), I can't believe that this
machine produces exactly 500 in each batch, so I suspect something is missing
after "five hundred". "500 micron long strands", "500m of strands a minute" or
something like it?

Also, regardless of whether a unit is missing, how does this compare to the
competition?

~~~
D_Alex
1\. I am pretty sure they can count the strands exactly. What happens is that
material akin to a tar pitch is extruded through tiny die holes, each hole
generating one strand... if there are 500 holes, then 500 strands at a time
are produced.

2\. Re comparison to competition: I have visited a carbon fibre production
plant in France. They use a different process, and do not extrude the fibres
on site. Instead they buy polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers - these are used in
their own right to make "acrylic" cloth, but there they are the raw material.
They convert that into carbon fibre with I think tens of thousands of strands
at a time. So, 500 strand production line seems to be sub-commercial.

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daurnimator
Happy to see this come to fruition after all the recent budget cuts.

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jbgreer
Carbon fiber should be dirt cheap, then?

[https://phys.org/news/2016-03-ornl-low-cost-carbon-
fiber.htm...](https://phys.org/news/2016-03-ornl-low-cost-carbon-fiber.html)

"Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have
demonstrated a production method they estimate will reduce the cost of carbon
fiber as much as 50 percent and the energy used in its production by more than
60 percent."

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Animats
Huh? The actual article is titled "Australia for the first time has the
capacity to produce carbon fibre from scratch and at scale, thanks to CSIRO
and Deakin University." This seems to be Australia getting its first carbon
fiber plant, not a technical breakthrough.

The carbon fiber industry had overcapacity in 2013, but demand is now up a
bit.[1] The biggest producer is Toray (Japan), but there are lots of others.
Wind turbine blades are starting to use carbon fiber. Automotive isn't yet a
volume user, but the fiber industry is struggling to get in the door.

Right now, the limits on using carbon fiber seem to come from the problems in
making stuff out of it. The process described in the parent article ends with
a spool of thread. As of 2014, that sold for about $20/Kg, which is cheaper
than 3D printer filament. Making an auto part out of that cost $80/Kg. Some
new technology was supposed to bring the manufacturing cost down.[3] But as of
two years ago, the cost of the base material wasn't the limiting factor on
use.

[1] [http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/supply-and-demand-
ad...](http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/supply-and-demand-advanced-
fibers-2016) [2]
[https://blog.carbonfibergear.com](https://blog.carbonfibergear.com) [3]
[http://www.reuters.com/article/sgl-fibres-
idUSL5N0MP2RP20140...](http://www.reuters.com/article/sgl-fibres-
idUSL5N0MP2RP20140328)

~~~
NamTaf
I, too, can't see from the CSIRO article how costs will crash. It looks like
they just discovered a wet spinning process and patented it.

Maybe the OP's article theorises why this may be the case, but I can't load
it. Is it just that it's no longer purely a trade secret among facilities?

~~~
neltnerb
Maybe they mean that, in Australia, it will crash since they won't have to pay
import costs anymore?

~~~
NamTaf
You could be right. My completely uneducated guesses would be, in order of
likelihood:

\- an open patent rather than trade secret means that many manufactuers can
make it with the comparitively lower barrier to entry of a patent licence
rather than inventing a process internally

\- what you said

\- Their process is somehow revolutionary (pun not intended) and makes it
cheaper to manufacture

I'd be interested if anyone knows more!

------
oomkiller
Original source (that's not being hugged to death):
[http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2017/Carbon-
fibre-...](http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2017/Carbon-fibre-makes-
Australian-debut?featured=F29EDEB1728C4A92B579C7A5DC28BAD5)

~~~
dredmorbius
And should it be hugged to death:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170221071725/http://www.csiro....](https://web.archive.org/web/20170221071725/http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-
releases/2017/Carbon-fibre-makes-Australian-
debut?featured=F29EDEB1728C4A92B579C7A5DC28BAD5)

------
martyvis
Space elevator, here we come!

~~~
shrewduser
Unfortunately I don't think carbon fibre Is even nearly strong enough.

------
okonomiyaki3000
Is this article targeted at children? Too many adverbs for me.

~~~
fanpuns
I think it was written for Australians

~~~
mmjaa
You're both getting down voted, but as an Australian I think you're both onto
something here, quite interesting. Its definitely the case that Australian
tech people tend to overly bloviate when it comes to national pride - this
article triggered me extensively in that regard. Australians bloviate.

~~~
angry_octet
It is written by PR people ("Corporate Communications") not engineers. It is
deliberately pitched in a non-technical and self-inflated way, presumably on
the assumption that members of the public enjoy a jingoistic self-
congratulatory tone. Maybe that is the only way to get that kind of press
release into the press.

------
unexistance
potential patent troll

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/5v8joz/mass_pro...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/5v8joz/mass_production_of_carbon_fibre_solved_by_csiro/de0f5at/)

based on [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/04/how-the-
aussie-g...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/04/how-the-aussie-
government-invented-wifi-and-sued-its-way-to-430-million/)

~~~
NeutronBoy
> potential patent troll

I must be confused. How are they a patent troll if they actually do the the
R&D part of the patent? A patent troll would buy the filed patent and just
spend money enforcing it to collect cash...

I am a bit biased because I'm Australian and fully support the CSIRO. They're
a non-profit entity[0] - their mandate isn't to make money. The money they do
collect from royalties is rolled back into their research.

[0] In that they don't produce a profit for stakeholders. They're a government
agency though, not a registered charity.

~~~
dbaupp
I believe the contention in the WiFi case is whether CSIRO really did do the
R&D actually used in WiFi, or if it just happened to get lucky with a patent.
Of course, they presumably did vaguely do some sort of R&D in this space given
they were awarded a patent themselves, rather than buying it off some other
entity, like a patent troll would.

~~~
nikdaheratik
Considering how messed up the patent system can get, it's really confusing how
this one instance is where they decide to get worked up about. At least CSIRO
seems to do legitimate research in the area, and it is not hunting down small
scale players to make them pay up for questionable patents. This is the really
abusive part of current patent law, not which research org or corporation gets
"blessed" by the patent office.

