CF wheelchair seat pan advice needed?

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CF wheelchair seat pan advice needed?

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Dickie	Dickie posted 8 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 4, Visits: 14	Hi, Currently I use 5.5mm non-structual interior grade hardwood plywood (from Wickes) for my wheelchair seat pan, it spans a distance of 350mm. On top of this I place my foam/memory foam cushion. The plywood gives me the right degree of rigidity/flexibility but adds more weight to my ultra-lightweight wheelchair than I would like. I would like to replace the plywood seat pan with carbon fibre or CF sandwich but don't know what type and thickness would give me a similar feel to 5.5mm plywood? I know some top-end wheelchair manufacturers give the option of carbon seat pans but I they're very rigid with little flex, especially for someone of my low weight. It doesn't have to one complete seat pan front to back, it can be slats. NB: I weigh 53kg
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Warren (Staff)	Warren (Staff) posted 8 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Administrators Posts: 2.5K, Visits: 8.5K	I don't see why you can't change it over to a carbon sandwich panel. A cored panel like that is the most efficient way of doing things in terms of stiffness to weight. We have a 6mm foam cored panel that might work for your needs. High Strength Carbon Fibre Foam Core Panel 6mm The panel has a foam core and does have a similar sort of stiffness to typical plywood of similar thickness so i would expect the flexibility to be similar. My only concern would be long term durability depending on how much it routinely flexes, shock loading etc. However there is no easy way of finding that out without testing it. You could cut it into slats, but the sheet would from a structural perspective work more efficiently as a single piece. Warren Penalver Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant
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