Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

H/D flexible sheet OR thin rigid?

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic807.aspx

By chrismadrid - 2/22/2012 3:41:14 PM

I have an "issue" that I'm hoping to resolve.

I have a motorcycle with a height adjustable fly screen. This has cut outs shaped to fit arround the headlights. But when the screen is adjusted up to its highest there is a 40mm-ish gap between the lights and screen cutout.

This gap allows water/bugs/air through and it's all getting very mucky.

I'm torn between using the H/D flexible sheet or a thinish (1mm) rigid sheet. I need something flexible enough to be able to follow the original screen form without it folding back on itself once underway - The bike is not slow.

If pictures will help - I'll post some.

Thanks - Chris
By Matt (Staff) - 4/22/2012 5:50:13 PM

Hi Chris,

That's useful feedback. Yes, the flexible carbon fibre sheet is heat sensitive because the polymer is essentially PVC (which softens a lot with heat) so you will have a much softer material at a higher temperature. A rigid material, if you need a reasonable amount of flex from it, would probably need to be as thin as 0.5mm and possibly even our very thin 0.25mm pre-preg carbon fibre sheet. You would certainly only be able to get a single curvature out of the rigid carbon fibre sheet.

--Matt