CARBON FİBER

What is Carbon Fiber?

A carbon fiber is a long, thin strand of material about 0.0002-0.0004 in (0.005-0.010

mm) in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are bonded
together in microscopic crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the
fiber. The crystal alignment makes the fiber incredibly strong for its size. Several thousand
carbon fibers are twisted together to form a yarn, which may be used by itself or woven into a
fabric. The yarn or fabric is combined with epoxy and wound or molded into shape to form
various composite materials. Carbon fiber-reinforced composite materials are used to make
aircraft and spacecraft parts, racing car bodies, golf club shafts, bicycle frames, fishing rods,
automobile springs, sailboat masts, and many other components where light weight and high
strength are needed.

Historical

 Carbon fibers have been made inadvertently from natural cellulosic fibers such as
cotton or linen for thousands of years.
 However, it was Thomas Edison who, in 1978, purposely took cotton fibers and later,
bamboo, and converted them into carbon in his quest for incandescent lamp filaments.
 Interest in carbon fibers was renewed in late 1950s when synthetic rayons in textile
forms were carbonized to produce carbon fibers for high temperature missile
applications.
 The technical and commercial breakthrough for high performance carbon fibers
started in the late 1960s after introduction of the PAN process, which turned out to be
more economical due to higher carbon yields, which is 50% against 30% for rayon,
and simpler fabrication process. PAN based fibers also had superior physical
properties compared to rayon based fibers. PAN fiber is today recognized as the most
important and promising precursor for manufacture of high strength carbon fibers.
 Later carbon fibers were also prepared from pitch, a very cheap precursor. The most
commonly used pitches are those obtained from petroleum, asphalt, coal tar, and PVC.
The properties of pitch carbon fibers are generally inferior to PAN carbon fibers
because, if not specially treated, the pitches are usually isotropic before pyrolysis, and
the isotropy is maintained in the fibers unless the orientation of the larger planes is
 carried out under tension during the high temperature treatment, between 2000 and
3000 ±C.

Raw Materials and Processing

Carbon fibers can be made from a variety of precursors including PAN

(polyacrylonitrile) based, pitch based, and rayon based materials, with PAN based being the
most common. To make carbon fiber several steps are required, first of which includes
preparing the precursor by heating it to 200 to 300 degrees Celsius. Next the material is
transferred to an oxygen free environment and heated further to 1000 to 3000 °C. Because
there is no oxygen the fibers cannot burn and instead carbonize by releasing all of their non-
carbon atoms. The remaining carbon items crystallize that are aligned parallel to the axis of
the fiber. The last step involves slightly oxidizing and coating the surface to ensure proper
adhesion to epoxies and overall protection. A finished carbon fiber will be between 0.005 and
0.01 mm

Figure: Magnified view of an end of a carbon fiber carbonized at 1000 °C

The Properties of Carbon Fibers

Carbon fibers offer the highest specific modulus and highest specific strength of all
reinforcing fibers. Typical values of tensile properties of different carbon fibers are given in
Table I.

Table1: Axial tensile properties of carbon fibers

Table2: Important Properties of Graphite Fibers

Table3: Continuos Carbon Fiber Properties

It is well known that microstructure affects fiber properties. Due to the high content of
delocalized π electrons and the parallel alignment of graphene layers along the fiber axis,
carbon fibers show good thermal and electric conductivities in the fiber direction. Their
coefficient of thermal conductivity is in the range of 21–125 W/mK, which is close to that of
metals . In the case of high modulus MP (mesophase pitch) carbon fibers, thermal
conductivity can be more than 500 W/mK at room temperature. The electric conductivity of
graphitized carbon fibers is also close to that of metals. High modulus MP carbon fibers with
a high crystal orientation generally show a higher electric conductivity than PAN carbon
fibers. One thing to be noted is that carbon fibers have a small but negative coefficient of
linear thermal expansion (CLTE) of –0.5~–2.0 × 10-6/K in the fiber axial direction. The
negative CLTE is due to the high crystalline alignment in carbon fibers. It has been reported
that with the increase of Young’s modulus in the fiber direction, the absolute value of CLTE
increased. The negative CLTE can cause residual stresses at the interface when the
composites are subject to temperature change.

The fibers do not suffer from stres corrosion or stress rupture failures at room temperatures, as
glass and organic polymer fibers do. Especially at high temperatures, the strength and
modulus are outstanding compared to other materials. Carbon fiber composites are ideally
suited to applications where strength, stiffness, lower weight, and outstanding fatigue
characteristics are critical requirements. They are also finding applications where high
temperature, chemical inertness, and high damping are important. Carbon fibers also have
good electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and low linear coefficient of thermal
expansion.

Carbon Fiber Structure

The atomic structure of a carbon fiber is similar to that of graphite, consisting of

carbon atom layers (graphene sheets) arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern, as shown in
Figure 1. Depending upon the precursors and manufacturing processes, layer planes in carbon
fibers may be either turbostratic, graphitic, or a hybrid structure. In graphitic crystalline
regions, the layer planes are stacked parallel to one another in a regular fashion. The atoms in
a plane are covalently bonded through sp 2 bonding while the interaction between the sheets
is relatively weak Van der Waals forces. In a single graphitic crystal, d-spacing between two
graphene layers (d002) is about 0.335 nm. Elastic constants of these single crystals have been
calculated [1]. C11 and C33 are 1,060 GPa and 36.5 GPa, respectively, but C44 for shearing
is as low as 4.5 GPa. However, the basic structural unit of many carbon fibers consists of a
stack of turbostratic layers. In a turbostratic structure, the parallel graphene sheets are stacked
irregularly or haphazardly folded, tilted, or split. It has been reported that the irregular
stacking and the presence of sp3 bonding can increase d-spacing to 0.344 nm.

Figure 1: Structure of graphitic crystals and crystal directions.

This is a very strange thing to find, seeing as graphite is fairly soft and flakey, whereas
carbon fibre is strong and requires large forces to fracture. The structure does however explain
a few similarities between the two in that they are both brittle and, importantly, both are
chemically inert and therefore unreactive. It also explains how at very high temperatures of
2500oC, carbon fibre can be directly converted into graphite. The major differences between
the two can be explained by looking at their structures, not at an atomic scale, but at how the
individual strands / sheets are arranged. In graphite, large layers of the structure above lie one
on top of the other, with weak interactions between the layers. In carbon fibre however, they
do still lie one on top of the other, but are less ordered. Basically, the sheets fold within an
individual fibre. This is the main, crucial difference between the two and can be used to
explain why carbon fibre can be converted into graphite. The reason is that graphite is a much
more ordered structure, so is energetically more stable.

References

 Chand,S. 2000. ‘’Review Carbon Fibers for Composites’’ Journal of Materials

Science, 35, 1303-1313
 Hill, C. B. 2012. ‘’ Investigation of electrical and impact properties of carbon fiber
reinforced polymer matrix composites with carbon nanotube buckypaper layers’’,
University of Lowa
 Introduction to Composite Materials and Structures, Nachiketa Tiwari, Indian Institute
of Technology Kanpur
 Xiaosong Huang, 2009. ‘’ Fabrication and Properties of Carbon Fibers’’, materials, 2,
2369-2403
 http://zoltek.com/carbonfiber/
 http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2002/mjames/chemistry.html