Motorsport Composite Fundamentals: Surface Finishing
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Surface Finishing
04.01
| 00:00 | This section of the course is dedicated to exploring the alternative materials available for construction of composites parts. |
| 00:07 | Outside of the foundational reinforcements, resins and consumables. |
| 00:11 | We'll kick things off with cured products. |
| 00:14 | These are essentially pre-made composites that have been made via the construction techniques that we discussed in the previous section of the course. |
| 00:22 | As well as some others that we'll touch on as we go. |
| 00:25 | Our focus will be on the forms of composite materials that are like the raw materials we use in traditional fabrication. |
| 00:32 | These could entail anything from rigid sheets to sections like rods, tubes or angles. |
| 00:37 | All of which we'll get into in a moment. |
| 00:40 | But let's start with the flat products in this module and then we'll get into the sections in the next. |
| 00:45 | While these are available in fiberglass or hybrids like carbon kevlar. |
| 00:49 | We'll mostly be focusing on carbon fiber products as these are by far the most readily available and commonly used in motorsport applications. |
| 00:57 | But just understand the ideas are exactly the same for other composites. |
| 01:01 | In reality, this conversation could extend to complete motorsport parts that we might want to modify for our own applications. |
| 01:08 | But we'll draw the line here as we'll naturally cover this later in the course after we've made our own parts. |
| 01:14 | The main focus for right now is understanding what's available and how it could be of use to us. |
| 01:20 | Let's start with flat carbon fiber sheets. |
| 01:23 | These are made from wet layups on flat surfaces, resin infusion or the use of prepreg along with vacuum bagging. |
| 01:30 | Or in some cases, the use of a press to clamp the sheets flat while curing. |
| 01:34 | In the most basic form, these are single sided with one glossy acetic surface or mold surface. |
| 01:40 | While the other side is a matte finish as a result of contact with a layer of peel ply used in the vacuum bag. |
| 01:47 | Something that we'll be looking at in the following more advanced course. |
| 01:50 | Alternatively, double sided sheets have glossy surfaces on each side. |
| 01:54 | These are typically constructed using prepreg and a hydraulic press. |
| 01:59 | And as you'd expect, come at a significantly higher expense, about double the single sided products. |
| 02:04 | For such a simple product, there's a lot of possible variations here past the construction technique. |
| 02:10 | Layers of reinforcement with different weaves and weights can provide different mechanical properties like strength and stiffness. |
| 02:17 | But also appearance. |
| 02:18 | Typically they're available in thicknesses up to about 4mm and sheets up to about 2m2. |
| 02:25 | As you'd imagine, this thickness also generally comes with more strength and stiffness, but also weight and expense. |
| 02:32 | We can use them for structural or cosmetic applications. |
| 02:35 | For example, we could cut our desired profiles for fascias and backplates for dashboards or aero parts like wing end plates. |
| 02:43 | Although our focus here is on carbon fibre products as they're the most useful in our application and also readily available, it should be noted that we can also get fibreglass sheet or what's commonly called composite plate. |
| 02:56 | However, this isn't typically used in automotive applications. |
| 03:00 | Carbon Kevlar sheet, however, is useful for abrasion resistance on things like flat floors. |
| 03:05 | Moving on, sandwich panels are an extension of these flat products and feature a core material like foam or honeycomb structures between the two sheets. |
| 03:15 | We'll be discussing core material more in the next module, but they're used to add thickness or structure with minimal weight and cost. |
| 03:23 | These are also commonly used for aero parts or panels where more thickness is required, like inside a front splitter for example. |
| 03:31 | Another variation of flat sheets is what's referred to as strips. |
| 03:34 | These are essentially just sheets that have been pre-trimmed to a consistent width and often come in one metre lengths. |
| 03:42 | We can think of our flat sheets like sheet metal and these strips like plate, although we wouldn't really ever bend composite parts. |
| 03:49 | Before moving on to cover the section forms of cured products in the next module, let's quickly summarise what we've covered. |
| 03:55 | Cured composite parts are available in basic forms that we can work with to build parts without having to go through the lay-up and construction process ourselves. |
| 04:05 | Flat sheets are the most common and basic form of this. |
| 04:08 | They can be easily cut out and pre-trimmed into flat parts. |
| 04:12 | A key differentiation past the construction technique and layers of reinforcement used is the aesthetic surfaces, either being one- or two -sided. |
| 04:20 | Sandwich panels consist of a core material sandwiched between two sheets, usually in the interest of increasing thickness or structure with minimal added expense and weight. |
| 04:31 | Finally, strips are essentially just flat sheets that have been pre-trimmed to a nominal width. |
