1879
Carbon Fiber
Thomas Edison (1847–1931)
What if you want to engineer a structure that is both strong and light? And by strong we mean stronger than steel, and by light we mean lighter than aluminum. If that is what you need, and your budget is big enough to afford it, then your go-to material in today’s world is carbon fiber, first developed by Thomas Edison in 1879, who used an all-carbon fiber filament to light the first incandescent light bulbs.
Carbon fiber reinforced plastic, which was developed from this initial material, uses hard plastic to encase the carbon fibers to stabilize them. The carbon fibers come from threads of high-carbon materials, the most common being polyacrylonitrile. By heating the fibers in oxygen and then without oxygen, everything but the carbon atoms boils off. These remaining carbon atoms are structured as long chains that have impressive tensile strength. They can form into threads, and the threads can be spiral wound or woven into a fabric.
The most common way to work with carbon fiber is to lay up the cloth in a mold and soak it with the plastic resin. Molding allows carbon fiber parts to be any shape, but it is an expensive, manual process. In items where cost is no object, like race cars, supercars, airplanes, and expensive bicycle frames, this is not a problem. But it has limited the spread of carbon fiber to a wider array of products. For example, your typical consumer automobile is not made of carbon fiber because of the cost.
How strong is carbon fiber? Imagine a piece of steel and a piece of carbon fiber both shaped like pencils. The carbon fiber piece might be three times stronger than the steel piece, but have one-third the weight. It is a huge difference. The first time you hold carbon fiber, it seems like it comes from another world because it is so light and strong compared to steel.
SEE ALSO Human-Powered Airplane (1977), V-22 Osprey (1981), Bugatti Veyron (2005), Human-Powered Helicopter (2012).
High-performance bicycle frames are often made of carbon fiber.