Carbon Fiber or Steel for Transportation?

If you have watched enough episodes of Mean Green Machines, undoubtedly you will have heard the word carbon fiber enough to realize its potential over standard materials used to build ground vehicles, motor bikes, helicopters, and planes.



Currently, manufactures are working to get the cost of this stuff down enough so they can start using it in place of the standard steel and aluminum. Toyota has already began implementing it for use in its future generations of hybrids, but what makes this stuff so good? Well, we'll tell you:

• The biggest advantage of carbon fiber over steel and aluminum, is it is as much as five times lighter, yet still maintains the exact structural integrity and safety levels. If you add in the substitution of carbon fiber over steel, you would end up with a vehicle that was approximately 60 percent lighter.
  
• The next advantage to go along with the 60 percent lighter weight is about 30 percent fuel savings. We all know that the more weight a motor has to pull, the more energy or fuel is necessary to get it up to speed. If we could put our vehicles on a strict carbon fiber diet and come out with vehicles half the weight, we would not only enjoy the 30 percent fuel savings, but electric vehicles would have a greater output and efficiency over today's models.
  
• The reduced weight allows manufacturers to use much smaller engines and still maintain the same performance numbers that we are used to. This means each vehicle on the road would produce on average about 10 to 20 percent less greenhouse gases than they currently do.
  
  


• Tests have shown that not only is carbon fiber as structurally sound as today's high-grade steel, but in some cases it is more so. Further testing still needs to be done to confirm this finding, but the results are looking very promising.
  
  
  

Every rose has its thorn, so let's look at the bad side of carbon fiber:

• The number one obstacle for the use of carbon fiber is its current inability to recycle. Yes, it can be recycled to some degree, but tests have shown that it is never as strong the second time around, unlike steel. This is a big negative, especially with the number of vehicles that need to be recycled every year. What would we do with all the scrap carbon fiber once a vehicle's life is spent?
  


• The current obstacle that manufacturers are dealing with today is the cost. Carbon fiber is currently about $8 to $10 a pound, and it would need to be more like $3 to $5 in order to be cost-effective enough for manufacturers to use it on an entire vehicle.
  
  
  

This post was inspired by Mean Green Machines..