We've reported before about various plans to improve the manufacturing of carbon fiber composites for use in mainstream automobile manufacturing. These efforts are among several automotive lightweighting approaches being tried to help cars meet federal fuel efficiency standards. Now the Australian company Carbon Revolution says it has made the first one-piece, all-carbon fiber composite wheel for cars and planes.
The CR-9 wheel is constructed from continuous carbon fiber. Both front and rear wheels have a 19-inch rim diameter. The front wheel has a rim width of 8.5 inches and weighs 15.73 pounds. The back wheel has a rim width of 12 inches and weighs 18.15 pounds. Carbon Revolution says the wheels are 40 percent to 50 percent lighter than typical automotive OEM aluminum wheels. A quick check around the Web gave an average weight of about 25 pounds for an aluminum car wheel of roughly the same size.
The one-piece CR-9 front wheel weighs 7kg (15.73 pounds), has a rim diameter of 19 inches, and attaches to metal hardware with a patented joint system under dynamic loading conditions. (Source: Carbon Revolution)
A patented bolted joint system is used to attach composites to the CR-9's metal hardware under dynamic loading conditions. As we've reported before, mixed materials attachment methods are an ongoing problem in newer aerospace designs that combine metals with carbon fiber composites, most recently in the Airbus 380 wings. Carbon Revolution says its joint system is as highly engineered as the wheel's composite structure.
CR-9 wheels are designed using computational modeling techniques, which include full vehicle dynamic modeling and finite element analysis (FEA). Carbon Revolution says its computational simulations are so closely correlated to actual wheel behavior that product development timeframes are shortening. (You can watch a video of CR-9 impact tests simulating a pothole at the bottom of the post.) Because the behavior of fiber laminates is much more complicated compared to cast or forged metals, the company is working with FEA partners to develop improved methods for accurately modeling carbon fiber properties.
Although there's a wealth of information for longstanding aerospace applications, putting this technology to use in automotive manufacturing is a challenge. For example, recently renewed US Department of Energy funding for automotive lightweighting emphasizes research and development in the predictive modeling of carbon fiber composites, including the development and validation of modeling tools to optimize carbon fiber composite performance and cost-effectiveness. (See: Automotive Lightweighting Funding Renewed by White House.)
The process for manufacturing CR-9 wheels combines aerospace manufacturing rigor with the efficiency, process controls, and automation of high-volume automotive production lines. By 2013, Carbon Revolution hopes to have certification for TS16949, the ISO technical specification detailing the development of automotive quality management systems. Its approach has attracted funding from the Australian government's $5.4 billion New Car Plan.
The company began as an independently run R&D program collaborating with university research teams working on Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) student designs. Vehicles in the 2004 competition used the first composite wheels designed by Carbon Revolution's founders. Its founders and employees include senior engineers in chassis development and drive train functions from automotive OEMs, senior manufacturing executives from component suppliers such as Bosch, former employees of Boeing's Phantom Works, and industrial composites manufacturing specialists. The company also maintains technology development and product testing relationships with Deakin University and RMIT in Australia.
Looks like a really important development effort. Not only does the wheel help with the lightweighting strategies of automotive OEMs, I'd say it's still pretty good looking. Given that style is such an important element of car selection, I'd say any kind of modifications to materials or appearance in the name of lightweighting vehicles still has to have an appeal to consumers and I think this example satisfies both.
Paraphrasing Henry Ford (regarding the Model T) and applying it to carbon fiber: You can have any color you want, as long as it's black.
I predict riches for the developer of non-black carbon fiber. Sure, you can paint it. But if the color is part of the material, a process is saved. Finishes wear off too.
A better way of saying it might be: Beauty, in this case, is more than skin deep.
TJ, I think you've got a great point there. Red? Electric blue? Magenta? Daffodil yellow? OTOH, I'm not sure if that's physically possible, since carbon is, well, black.
The only impossible thing is skiing through a revolving door.
If there's incentive enough, a chemist and the company backing him are going to be very rich.
You've forgotten carbon comes in several forms (cough cough diamond cough cough). It's clear, fiber's been black all this time. Surely there's some room in the middle for a bit of color. Maybe the fibers are carbon nano-tubes, and the interiors can be filled with a colored element.
I wish I had the capital. I see a mint in the making.
Gee, I don't know - why would you pay the price for carbon and then not show-it-off? Isn't that part of the glamour? I do know that people have added pigment to the resin on some carbon assemblies. It is, after all FRP, so you can make the plastic any color you want. I'm much more impressed with the fastenings. So far, if you want to connect a carbon fiber assembly to something, you must either bond it, or use fasteners which typically create such high point loads that the carbon assembly fractures. There is great potential in this technology though I'd guess cost will be the major factor in implementing it.
The pictures of the aluminum wheel dented at 50mph on the pothole simulation compared to the 60mph without effect looks good.
Sven is still right, when these wheels fail, they will likely fail miserably. But it appears they won't fail easily. Of course, I lived in Detroit for a while and very little made it through the tire killer on southward I-94 - a pothole about 3 feet long and at least a foot deep (has since been fixed). There were cars lined up along the road just past that pothole. I wonder how this would do against something like that?
Yep, actually, that's the stretch of road I was thinking of. So many people I worked with had their aluminum rims destroyed on the way back from meetings in Detroit. And guys coming back with a sore head because they hit the roof during the ordeal.
I guess maybe the carbon would be safer then...after both rims plough into the hard edge pot hole, smash into a tangled mess of shards and fibres, you could glide to a stop on the underbelly or your car since the chassis would now be about flush with the road surface adjacent to the pot-hole.
But point taken about the resin choice that would have some "give" to it.
Well, my question is are the weight reduction goals to reduce the entire vehicle's weight, or just the unsprung weight, and how those two differing strategies impact fuel efficiency. Reducing unsprung weight is always a good thing, mostly for NVH. Reducing wheel/tire weight does have some positive MPG impact, but mostly during accceleration, it actually can work the other way during deceleration, where a heavier wheel/tire can help maintain momentum. Using carbon in a wheel is a very challenging application...perhaps putting carbon in other areas to reduce weight might be much more cost effective way to the same effect, perhaps using carbon in suspension components, thus satisfying some of the total weight reduction goals AND unsprung weight goals, although admittidly not as dramatic as carbon wheels.
That sounds more like a road failure than a pothole. Glad the roads where I live are better maintained. I doubt if many design/material combinations could survive an encounter with that cavity unharmed.
I wonder about true real world impact testing on a carbon fibre wheel.
See the old steel rims could take a curb or nasty detroit pot-hole and you could drive off with a dent in the rib. The tire might leak some air on the way home. A mallet or a torch and you could get it back into shape.
The aluminum wheels are usually pretty good, but occasionally I've seen a pot-hole crack the aluminum and the wheel is toast. I've seen people weld aluminum rims, after damage, but I'd stay away from that.
Carbon fibre is brittle and shatters. I envision hitting a curb or nasty pot-hole and having the entire wheel splinter into shards. Most of us have seen carbon fibre at the race track and what happens during impact.
Sven, I think your concerns are real, but so is the crash-worthiness testing of carbon fiber made for high-volume automotive apps. Not all carbon fiber composites are made in the same way. Stay tuned for my upcoming September feature on this topic.
Sorry had to edit this. Browser I was using to reply left all the spaces out.
I look forward to it! I love technology, and I imagine there will be a huge safety factor put in. I just keep having visions of things like the time Kimi Raikkonen was on his way to win an F1 race and his rear wing let go. It put up with several G's down force--until it didn't--then it was instantly obliterated. Ductile metals have a forgiveness as they are over loaded they fail and stretch and deform until becoming unusable. Carbon fibre is so strong but past the yield point it seems its almost instant fail. In concrete we use rebar to offset the brittleness. Maybe this carbon fibre will have some stretchy/bendy fibres???
Chuck, once again no pricing information was available, but I'd be very surprised if it cost the same or less. TJ, I think calling diamonds a form of carbon is stretching the definition in terms of what's practical in a manufacturing sense.
Sven...the durability of carbon fiber is in the resin system chosen. When extreme stiffness is the design requirement, the proper resins are brittle. When tension/compression strengths are the requirement, a more resilient resin can be used.
As for cost...I'd expect 2-4x the cost of aluminum, depending on the production quantity.
Having read many questions about alternate materials in some custom and kitcar forums, How does the weight of the carbon wheel compare to that of a steel wheel? And how well will they stand up to the standard North American pothole? While aluminum and carbon fiber do have their place, often it is necesssary to add weight to achieve the desired strength of the original steel wheel. Maybe not as pretty...
While they may have a certain "sex apeal" it would seem that this application could leave something to be desired in terms of the abuse the wheels have to endure as a normal part of their life cycle.
kf2qd, carbon weighs a heck of a lot less than steel: the strength-to-weight ratio most often quoted is 4-5x, which is the main point for using it in automotive lightweighting as the article mentions. The video at the bottom of the article shows the pothole impact test.
Inspired by the hooks a parasitic worm uses to penetrate its host's intestines, the Karp Lab has invented a flexible adhesive patch covered with microneedles that adheres well to wet, soft tissues, but doesn't cause damage when removed.
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego are designing a robotic arm that takes inspiration from the loose, flexible, yet very strong structure of the armored plates on a seahorse's tail.
Researchers at the Missouri University of Science & Technology have designed a new nanoscale material that can transmit light faster than the 186,000 miles per second it usually takes to travel through air.
It has often been said that as California goes, so goes the nation. This spring, the state's wind power is setting energy generation records and solar energy generation is expected to rise sharply during the second half of 2013.
The latest model of Liquid Robotics' Wave Glider autonomous, unmanned marine vehicle (UMV), the SV3, is reportedly the world's first hybrid wave- and solar-power-propelled unmanned ocean robot.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
8 
