Carbon Fiber ✖ Bach

Background reading music curated for this article is available at the bottom. Click to enjoy

01 Introduction: Power v.s. Expense

Carbon fiber is familiar to most people, because of its intense rigidity and solidity and lightness. In many parts of life, for example, prosthesis, car decorations, etc. 

carbon fiber prosthesis

The use of carbon fiber makes these structures extremely strong and unbreakable, prolonging the durability of these devices significantly. Besides that, its low weight not only lowers the burden of users but also lowers the energy needed for machines to power up the device. For such reason, carbon fibers have been extensively welcomed by all groups of users and producers. If you came to believe that carbon fiber outweighs any other materials in manufacture, I would chuckle and reguard you naïve. The issue is the cost. The processing of carbon fiber is extremely complexed and requires accurate techniques. This can be costly. That’s why most inexpensive products cannot afford to use carbon fiber. 

pseudo-carbon fiber products (layers of paint)

That is literally why carbon fiber is to some extent associated with luxuries.

02 Manufacturing

So what exactly makes carbon fiber that costly, let’s focus at the process of manufacturing of this material. The manufacturing begins with a polymer precursor, most commonly polyacrylonitrile (PAN), that is spun into very fine filaments. 

PAN structure

These filaments must then undergo stabilization in air at controlled temperatures, where their internal structure is chemically rearranged to become thermally stable. After that, the fibers are heated to temperatures exceeding 1,000°C in an oxygen-free environment during a stage known as carbonization. In this process, non-carbon elements are removed as gaseous byproducts, leaving behind a structure composed largely of carbon atoms arranged in an ordered form. 

carbon fiber internal structure

For even greater rigidity and stiffness, some fibers are further treated at extremely high temperatures to improve crystalline alignment. Finally, surface treatment and sizing are applied to ensure proper bonding with resin matrices.

03 How Shortages are Overcame

Apart from that, being rigid and solid is not always a good thing. The most significant drawback is the difficulty when it comes to shape modification. Luckily, carbon fiber expansions can be a useful tool when it comes to actuation and shape-morphing. Of course carbon fiber is way too stubborn to morph on its own, this process can be done with the assistance of the coating of other metals. The embedding metal should be able to do axial strains. 

carbon fiber shape-morphing

Lithium shows excellent ability to do so. According to researches, lithium can reach the axial strain with the percentage of about 0.7% with the capacity of 350mAh/g. As lithium is embedding carbon fiber on both sides, lithium ion will gather on the side which electrons pass when it is connected in to a circuit. Therefore, the who pannel, composed of carbon fiber and lithium will be bent, as the upper or lower part of it contains more lithium ion. That is literally how we combat the rigidity of carbon fiber to make it curly rather than absolutely straight.

Music Recommendation

I find Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 fits the characteristic of carbon fiber, which mainly is highly regular structure. It is this structure that ensures the rigidity of carbon fiber as well as the soothing and enjoyable tone of music.

Bach Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, Bwv 1007

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