I was searching on ebay awhile back and there was an ebay store called "drift factory" or something like that. they sold high strength high quality carbon fiber tubes for roll cage aplications anywhere from 1 inch to like 4 inch dia. Why don't you see people with 3 inch carbonfiber intercooler piping? it was not that expensive. if it is durable enough for a roll cage why not use it for your intake? It would be unique thats for sure

 

Probably because it's damn expensive and you can't weld or bend carbon fiber pipes.

 

ebay store and cf roll cages sounds a bit hokey, im positive it can be done but i dont see it being ebay material lol

Oh, and I have seen CF intercooler piping before. On a couple cars. One I think is the koenigsegg CC (the first one)
dont remember what else. but its been done

 

CF intakes and IC pipes have been done, but making CF pipes is a PITA. at least from the fiberglass ones ive made. waste of time when compared to aluminum.

 

well they dont heat soak as much as metal.

 

cf roll cage?? sounds like a joke. carbon fiber is a little to brittle to be used as a functional roll cage..and there are carbon fiber intakes

 

well accoring to my uncle who is one of the head engineers of bell hellicopters down in texas the carbonfiber composit they use on the v22 osprey is as strong as steel and will handle the exhaust of those 16,000 shaft hp gas turbine engines... theres exeptions it depends on the quality of the carbonfiber which i guess *** aaron stated would be expensive.
but in an intake situation it needs very little structural integrity and the intake temps before and after the intercooler arent all too hot. the heat radiating off the turbo itself is all i would think there would be to worry about. welding wouldn't be doable but if you wanted couldnt you use all straight pieces and silicone angles or have aluminum angles and silicone couplings.. .. i dont know about how well carbonfiber tansfers heat but if it didnt head soak as well as aluminum wouldnt that b an advantage?

 

I think the main thing you need to worry about heat soaking is the intercooler itself, not the piping. I don't think the air spends enough time in the piping to make much of a difference.
Also, the problem with carbon fiber is that it tends to only be stong in a particular direction. Just look at F1 suspentions - they are super stong in the directions they are designed to be used in, but shatter upon impact. That doesn't seem like it would be very good in a roll cage. You might be able to form it in a way that would work, though, but I'm no expert. It would prob end up being super expensive, though.
And kiethrulz, does your uncle work with the tilt-rotors in Amarillo? I think my great uncle might have dealt with them a few times way back before he retired.

 

I have a decent amout of experience with carbon from my experiences with R/C sailplanes. Carbon definitely could be used for a roll cage if designed perfectly, but it is very sensitive to pressure risers because it is so brittle; so the cage design would probably have to be PERFECT. I personally wouldn't use it.

As far as intake piping, I don't see any reason not too. Carbon is a great insulator, so it would probably keep air intake temps down a tiny bit. However, it would make horrible intercooler pipe for the same reason.

The other issue is with its strength while heated, which may (???) become an issue in a hot engine bay under high boost. Although CF fibers themselves can withstand extreme heats, the resins commonly used usually do not perform well when heated much. For example, they always paint full size sailplanes white because the heat from the sun could weaken the layup.

 

his names dan wakeland and works for the tilt rotor division thats all i know really. but this thread has been perty neat, some good info

 

ebay store is called 'drift factory'


That right there dq's the whole thing. It was probably some rice product.

 

Carbon use in a roll cage is a bad idea. Yes carbon is strong but thats only half of the equation. Roll cages dont need to just be strong they need to be able to absorb engery as well. Metal is good at this because it can deform. All the bending that take place in a collision soaks up a ton of energy. Carbon bend and permanently deform it just breaks. It hardly yields under force until it just snaps. Hardly any enrgy is absorbed in the break and subseqently the energy just goes somewhere else like into the driver. Kevlar is used heavily in F1 carbon tub chassis to aid in energy disipation in crashes because the carbon is worthless at it. When loaded in compression a kevlar fiber will crack in many places along its length. Each one of these little cracks soaks up a small amount of energy. So when you have a few layers of kevlar, each containing a lot of fibers you can evefectively soak up a lot of energy in a crash.

Also a big problem with a carbon cage is that it is very hard to detect damage that is anything less than major. To be sure your cage hasn't been damaged in a race or between races you would need some very expensive NDT equipment including the person who would have enoguh trianing to run the equipment and interpret the grpahs and such. Another option would be to replace the whole cage at each event. YEah that would get pricey. Or you could do it like aero engineers do and way over build the carbon structure and assume it is damaged and continue overbuilding until it is strong enough even in a damged condidtion.

Now onto carbon intercooler pipes. Carbon isn't the best insulator. Fiberglass and kevlar both do a better job at limiting heat transfer than carbon. Also even though carbon can withstand high temps the epoxy used to hold it together can't. Regular epoxy resins are structually good to intermittent exposures of 300F. The exhaust ducts used in heli's are most likely using a different resin called a bismalimade. It is a lot more expensive but can withstand more heat.

So carbon as role cages and intercooler pipes isn't very practicle.

 

I don't know about you, but I design my intercooler piping to minimize the amount of couplers. The more couplers, the more places for failure and leaks.

If there are any more then 4 couplers in the system (assuming you are not using crazy joints like Wiggins connectors, v-band, etc.) then you are doing somethign wrong.