Hi,

Could you advise on the most suitable epoxy adhesive for bonding carbon fibre laminate to aluminium (1000 series).
And what is the best way to prepare the surfaces for joining.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Allan

Hi, I have experimented with bonding CF to both Aluminium and Titanium .. In both cases the specialized products like the Permabond stuff gives the best adherence, for the least effort..

With ordinary laminating epoxy from EC, I did get just as good adhesion, by "sanding" the epoxy into the alu/Ti surface.

Simply by coating a cleaned piece of alu with the resin, then using 100 grit paper to sand through the still wet epoxy resin, then adding a new thin coat on top, and then laminating CF onto this using normal procedures for CF lamination.

This ensures that the epoxy is in direct chemical contact with non-oxidised metal.

Using a "special blend" of "Nanocyl"  Epocyl carbon nanotube epoxy resin and normal Resin increased the strenght even further. 

Thermal expansion will be a problem, causing distortion in an Alu-CF laminate.  This can cause problems with the aluminium honeycomb core as well, if both sides of the sandwich is not "glued up" in one go, at the same temperature......

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