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Making tubes out of prepreg
Making tubes out of prepreg
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Making tubes out of prepreg
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Bambooride
Bambooride
posted 11 Years Ago
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Hi,
I'm not so new to using carbon for my projects but I'm a total newbie in using prepregs. I've built a few (around 80) bamboo bikes where the tubes are joined with carbon fibre.
I am planning to advance my technology skills a bit by building a full carbon bicycle using prepregs. (I've built one for my son with standard woven mats and tubes made on an aluminium mandrel.)
However, I ran into unexpected problems with my tube-building technique:
Since I wanted to make everything perfect I bought UD prepreg from Haufler Composites in Germany (300 grm/m2) and built an oven large enough to hold 3 bicycle frames. I also bought some shrink tape (
http://www.carbonmods.co.uk/products/composites-shrink-tape-roll.aspx).
I then took an aluminium mandrel with 35 mm diameter, waxed it and rolled strips of UD fibre at +-45° and 0° - in total 5 layers on the mandrel taking care that the strips would sit neatly next to each other (not gap) and that there is little air caught between the layers. Then I wrapped it with the shrink tape spiralling over the mandrel and put it into the oven at 110° celsius.
The result was worse than expected - the tube was not uniform at all on the outside. On some locations, there was a gap in the shrink tape. There, the fibre "escaped" the pressure of the tape and "ooozed" out of the gap. On other locations the tape overlapped and leading to locally higher pressure creating non-uniform wall thickness. I don't see how I could improve the process prevent that other than using less compression force, which would probably lead to delamination inside the tube. A heat shrink tube would not have any gaps or overlaps, but it would still compress the fibre. I guess the fibre would "meander" under the compression force as the outside diameter would shrink a bit.
On a sidenote - I could not get out the mandrel either - but actually I might just have taken a non-waxed one off the shelve.
Any suggestions on what I shoud change?
Alex
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brainfart
brainfart
posted 11 Years Ago
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Excellent advice, rob. I like that slide hammer idea.
Mine would have been overlapping the shrink tape more, too.
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Making tubes out of prepreg
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
Was your wax rated for 110 ? we only ever use wax on LTM tooling 60 degcure 110/125 cures boil most...
f1rob
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11 Years Ago
Hi f1rob thanks a lot. I check and the wax was indeed not rated for the temperature. I'll try the...
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
Hello Alex I have made a few tubes with shrink tape and a alloy mandrel, make sure you polish the...
carbonfibreworks
-
11 Years Ago
Excellent advice, rob. I like that slide hammer idea. Mine would have been overlapping the shrink...
brainfart
-
11 Years Ago
Looks like your problem is no overlapping as said above. Most tubes I have seen done with tape are...
Fasta
-
11 Years Ago
Thanks to everybody for the useful advice. I ordered new release agent and will do a second trial as...
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
Hi there Bambooride, two things: 1) Can I see some of your bikes? I make bamboo bikes as well:...
Drew Diller
-
11 Years Ago
Hi Drew, sorry for the late reply - I had actually written the response a while ago but didn't hit...
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
Hi Alex, One way I found easy for tubes is to use a full heat shrink tube. This way you will get an...
cornelp
-
11 Years Ago
Three layers shrink tape for thicker laminates.
Fasta
-
11 Years Ago
Hi Everybody, it's a while since the last post, but I just wanted to let you know how the story...
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
I'd be careful with riding that frame, 850 grams is too light weight. The lightest of the light...
Drew Diller
-
11 Years Ago
Hi, I am well aware of that - I made it so light because I didn't want to use much of the...
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
Word. Sounds a good plan, didn't mean to insult your intelligence.
Drew Diller
-
11 Years Ago
:-) In a way you were right though - a friend of mine who helps me a lot with building bikes...
Bambooride
-
11 Years Ago
Hi @Bambooride So After wet layup of rods how do you apply compression force to it.I am making a...
M Hathiyari
-
10 Years Ago
Hi, we are doing we layup with a layer of breather cloth and then compress with heatshrink tubes....
Bambooride
-
10 Years Ago
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