Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Carbon tubes for lightweight handles/framework

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic34257.aspx

By AMRound - 11/29/2019 9:59:46 AM

Hello,
I have no experience with carbon as a material.

I've just seen a handle for a trolley that is made from carbon. At a glance, it looks like bent tube construction, but I don't think that you can bend carbon tube once it's been cured.
I've done some digging on the internet and seen some examples of producing handlebars with Bag Inflation Moulding, but this seems a bit overkill. Can you buy pre-cured carbon tubes that can be cured in a bent shape using a mould?

It appears to have some aluminium components fixed on the end that are machined to allow it to be bolted onto the trolley. The whole assembly is then powder coated.

  

Can anyone offer me some advice on what I'm looking at and how I might be able to go about producing something similar myself?

Cheers,

Alex
By AMRound - 12/4/2019 12:17:15 PM


Hi Hojo,
Thanks for your reply.
I have looked a bit into bike manufacturing, Bladder moulding looks like it's perfect for manufacturing complex shapes. I've never heard of expancell. A quick google search suggests that they're microsphere additives? I will look into them further.
I wondered if you could get flexible prepreg tubes that could then be fitted into a mould and then cured? For simpler tube sections, it could potentially cut out the process of needing to cut specific shapes and carefully fitting them in the mould.
I was also thinking of maybe using bladder moulding to create corner joints to connect lengths of straight cured tube (kind of like plumming!)
Cheers,
Alex