Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

General engine tech -- Drag Racing to Circle Track

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peejay
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by peejay »

Nefario wrote: Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:14 am
I've thought about how to maximize the properties of carbon fiber. Maybe use molten aluminum as "resin"?
That sounds like MMC - metal matrix composite. One of the big-name bike companies was making bikes out of that stuff, too.

If there's a weird/"high tech" material, bikes have been made of it. Litespeed used to make bikes out of 6/4 titanium, which is too hard to for into tubes, so they would weld up triangular sections from flat stock instead. And there was one company that made frames from beryllium.
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Zmechanic »

They kind of had my attention with the pistons. A CF/aluminum hybrid might be intriguing, although they claim its completely composite. If that's the case, they need a new picture because the one they have looks like a little carbon fiber piece slipped over the skirts. #-o
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by pdq67 »

What would happen if somebody iso-statically pressed carbon fiber to up about 20,000 psi such that it was zero porosity and then baked the stuff up to like 3,200 degrees or so in an inert atmosphere so that it formed a solid carbon blank that could be diamond machined into what was wanted?

Is this even possible?

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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by 96blackgt54 »

Funny you ask!

Company i worked for did just what you described with brake rotors for jets. My answer would be no. Strength wise,yes...oil resistance, no. Carbon loves oil! Saturation would kill it all.

Although through an accident we learned a carbon steel plate processed along with the carbon fiber rotor, the 2 would absorb together. I would imagine a carbonfiber rod with a steel exo-skeleton would be possible.
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Jeff Lee »

Reminds me of my trip down the “lets try the new exotic” lifters; specifically the Schubeck full composite body NHRA Stock Eliminator legal (why?) “hydraulic” variety. When one explodes, it’s like somebody threw a bag of glitter inside your engine and all those particles were like shards of glass. Then, to show more of my stupidity, in order to make the next race, I half-assed cleaned the blocks internals with a few cases of brake-keen and put new rings and bearings in it which lasted maybe two-rounds at the next race. The composite body lifters were replaced with composite pucks machined and glued to a regular steel lifter body. I got those for free and lost a puck on one. One could argue it was valve-train issues, etc., but the bottom line was, I was out of providing R&D for the exotic experiments. Permanently!
CF parts probably have a place in race engines but my suspicions are today is not the day. And I believe those CF pushrods mentioned were actually fibre-optic strands wound into a pushrod.
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Daniel Jones »

> I remember the huge CF fad in the bike world.

Carbon fiber is anything but a fad in the bike world. In fact, it's the dominant material in higher end road bikes with aluminum dominating the lower end. These days, titanium is more of a niche material for those that value the material's durability and ride quality. Price-wise, carbon fiber and titanium bikes can be fairly similar though the U.S. manufacturer titanium bikes tend to be more lower volume and more expensive.

> It ended up being as floppy and flexible as titanium but at twice the price.

Properly designed carbon fiber road bike frames tend to be quite stiff, especially with the truncated aero tube shapes so popular among the racier road bikes. In order to offset the rough ride quality of the stiffer carbon fiber frames, some of the manufacturers use hinged rear triangles with elastomer inserts and/or spring/damper headsets and seat posts.

Titanium has a high modulus of elasticity. Early titanium road bike frames simply used tube diameters similar to steel road bikes and were indeed quite flexible but, when designed with the material properties in mind in the right spots (larger diameter chain and seat stays), they can have quite good lateral stiffness while retaining the excellent ride quality titanium bikes are famous for. I have titanium (3Al/2.5V), carbon fiber, aluminum and steel road bikes and much prefer the ride of the titanium bike though I still lust after the aero shaped carbon fiber bikes. I have seen a couple of proof-of-concept 3-d printed titanium bikes which could theoretically be formed into any shape but I'm not sure how the 3-d material properties compare to titanium tubing.

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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Bazman »

Dan, you could buy a really nice car for what you have invested in all those bikes.. just say'n :lol:
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Daniel Jones »

> Dan, you could buy a really nice car for what you have invested in all those bikes..

Ha! You know what they say about the ideal number of bikes (it's N+1 where N is the number you currently have). Luckily, I didn't pay retail. I'm 6'5" and know a tall Specialized bicycle mechanic that lives in another town. He gets a steep discount on end-of-the-year bikes but can't resell them in his local area so makes me a deal. He's mainly a mountain biker so doesn't really put many miles on the road bikes. Retail on my Specialized Roubaix was something like $2300 and he sold it to me with less 200 miles for $900 delivered. He made me a similar deal on a trick Specialized Stumpjumper. I built the Habanero Team Issue Nuevo from a bare frame and fork. It was a leftover 62cm frame that had been sitting in warehouse for a while and Mark made me a deal I couldn't refuse ($525 for the titanium frame and carbon fiber fork). I finished it off with a 22 speed Shimano 105 groupset. The Roubaix was originally a Sram Apex 20 speed groupset which I eventually upgraded to the same 22 speed Shimano groupset I have on the Habanero. I picked up a new 63cm Felt F75 aluminum off of craigslist for cheap from a guy who got it in a crash replacement but never used it. The other road bike is 1983 Fuji 18 speed (monster 27" double-butted steel frame) that I rebuilt.

Now if you want to talk about expensive bikes, the CEO of the company I work (Boeing) is a pretty serious cyclist (averages 140 miles a week and has a bike trainer in his business jet) and has a Trek Project One:

https://road.cc/content/review/159585-t ... roject-one

It's Di2 electric shift with completely internal cabling (has flaps in the head tube that pop out on sharp turns to provide room for the cabling). It has the sliding rear triangle with elastomer suspension and air foil frame, seat post and handlebars, along with custom paint featuring the outline of various Boeing products (787, AH-64, F-15E, F/A-18, etc.). Dennis mentioned taking it with him to the Paris Air Show and doing some of the Tour de France climbs including alpe d'huez on it. I think it carries a five figure price tag.

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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by pdq67 »

96blackgt54 wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:35 am Funny you ask!

Company i worked for did just what you described with brake rotors for jets. My answer would be no. Strength wise,yes...oil resistance, no. Carbon loves oil! Saturation would kill it all.

Although through an accident we learned a carbon steel plate processed along with the carbon fiber rotor, the 2 would absorb together. I would imagine a carbonfiber rod with a steel exo-skeleton would be possible.
I said iso-statically pressed to 20,000 psi and then high-fired to produce a zero porosity blank! No oil saturation problems that I can see?

Probably use 100 percent pure 325 mesh and finer carbon powder.

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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by 96blackgt54 »

Would that technically be carbide?
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by jsgarage »

Dan, your adventures in exotic material bicycles eerily reminds me of Ducati's work with carbon fiber mini-frames in Moto GP. Hope your bicycle buddies have better luck than Ducati did; at least the stresses should all be lower(?) at 35 mph vs 190.
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by pdq67 »

96blackgt54 wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 3:41 pm Would that technically be carbide?
If not mistaken, "carbide", is a, "metal/carbon", alloy mix. Not a pure carbon material.

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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Daniel Jones »

> Hope your bicycle buddies have better luck than Ducati did; at least the stresses should all be lower(?) at 35 mph vs 190.

Well we have had a few accidents lately. One was a collision at literally 2 MPH. One rider stopped abruptly at a crossing while another was looking for traffic and braked a bit later. As rider #2 fell, his handlebars snagged the seat stay of rider #1 and instantly snapped the carbon fiber frame. It was the second ride of a new carbon fiber bike.

5 or 6 weeks ago, I was in a pace line at 25 MPH when the rider directly in front of me got his front tire clipped by the rider in front of him. He went down at a right angle to my path so I hit him and went down hard. The rider behind me says he ran over both of us but I don't remember that. The back of my head bounced off the pavement and I had a knot on my forehead as well. I was wearing a MIPS helmet which did it's job but I was seeing light flashes for several days. Broke 3 ribs in the process, along with several other injuries which are mostly healed at this point. After the crash, my front tire was rotated 180 degrees and wedge against the frame and the handlebars were out 90 degrees from that. I broke a a brake/shift lever (brifter) and the saddle but the titanium frame was undamaged. Another rider helped me straighten out the handlebars and I managed to ride it 5 1/2 miles back to where my car was parked. Had to true the wheels, replace the seat, brifter, cables and handlebar tape but it's back in service.

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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by TOL »

My thinking is look at what F1 has done with pistons and rods and materials, especially back in the day of the 20,000 K rpm Cosworth & Honda engines. Much has been forgotten since. Then look at what has banned since. Then look at what has been banned in NHRA Pro Stock. No carbon fiber parts in those applications.

In theory, carbon fiber internal engine parts could have their place, but they still have many significant technical complications ahead of them to be reliable. Pure carbon pistons have been explored by NASA, Schunck, and others, in the past, but they remain pretty much at the experimental level. Again, technical difficulties and massive capital cost to move ahead.
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Re: Carbon Fiber connecting rods from AWA Composites/SEMA?

Post by Kevin Johnson »

midnightbluS10 wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 2:54 pm Anybody heard of this place? They've got a booth at SEMA and they're displaying carbon fiber connecting rods at a cost of $18k for a set. I'm assuming that's a set of 8, as they mention Top Fuel in the SEMA display. Their website also shows a few cf parts they say they intend to release in Q4 of '18 and Q1 of 2019. Supercharger rotors, pushrods, rocker arms, rods, and they even talk about FULL cf pistons and include a patent application number, 62535821. Says they hired Top Fuel crew chief Lee Beard, as well.

Anybody heard of them? The guys name is Arthur Warfield. There's a little info on the website. I was actually wondering if anyone could find any info on the patent application or any other patents they may hold. I didn't have any luck. They showed a patent application number for the pistons of 62535821 somewhere but I can't seem to find it. They also list what they're calling "serial numbers" 16/041,464 for the rods and 16/042,350 on the pistons. The rest say patent pending. Those look similar to patent #'s but I don't know enough to determine if they are in that form.

Besides that, what do you all think? I apologize if this is in the wrong forum. Wasn't sure where exactly to put it.


www.awacomposites.com/products/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20190024702A1/en
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