[ QUOTE ]
Yeller600 said:
Not only is the stuff light & strong, but it is incredibly good at absorbing energy in the event of a high speed collision since it just disintegrates into a powder.
I was watching a documentary on TV a few months ago about innovations in F1 safety, brought about in response to fatal or near fatal accidents on the track. My memory is a little sketchy on the details, so if I've got some of my facts wrong I apologise, but if I recall correctly, in response to a very nasty accident where the driver lost his legs, engineers set about trying to find a way to alter the design of the nose cone to try to improve safety for the drivers, when they stumbled on CF. They made a nose cone entirely out of CF; crash tested it and were completely wowed by how it absorbed the energy on impact. Satisfied by the results from the crash tests they compared its' weight & strength to the original aluminium cone and, suitably impressed again (they probably collectively "spanked their monkeys"!! :wink
, started playing around with making other parts for the car. Now most of the chassis and major load baring components of F1 cars are constructed from CF...including the suspension wishbones!
So, in the case of carbon fibre wheels on bikes, I appreciate that they are a LOT lighter than stock wheels, but I also assume that their performance in the event of a high speed impact is also far superior. So, for example, in a head on collision instead of the wheel buckling and the energy from the impact being transferred through the frame of the bike to the rider and catapulting him/her violently into the air, would the wheel absorb most of the energy and make the riders' flight a little gentler? If this is the case, then I also presume that the more CF components there are on the bike the better, not just from the weight perspective, but from the safety perspective?
[/ QUOTE ]
Some of your info is very good Yeller, but some is way off. CF is actually quite poor at absorbing impact for the the reason that it shatters. Shattering absorbs very little energy. Think of glass or ceremics that shatter. The energy absorbtion comes for the kelvar layers that are interwoven into the layers of CF.
CF wheels are much lighter and therefore less mass to rotate and then to accelerate forward. But their impact resistance is quite poor. That is the reason you don't see them on the street much, as well as their price. Anymore questions? :wink:
