AER 318 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Cheesecloth, Bombardier Cseries
19 Oct 2017
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Document Summary
Carbon fibre composites are far less dense than aluminum, which allows them to be much lighter. At the same time, their interwoven molecular structure makes them potentially much stronger and more resistant to stresses. Its properties make carbon fibre composite sound like an ideal material for airplane builders, and, in some ways, it is. Unfortunately, its strength and lightness come at the cost of that crucial property of aluminum: predictability. Consider what would happen if turbulence were to hit a plane built from carbon composite. Steeves likens the effect to pulling on a cloth: if you stretch it parallel to the fibres then it"s very strong. If you try to stretch it perpendicular to the fibres, it"s very weak, he said. Depending on how the stress was distributed over the body of a plane, a carbon fibre component could hold up much better than a piece of aluminum. But it could also hold up much worse.
