Carbon fibres, manufacture, use and economy

Abstract

More than a decade has passed since carbon fibre has been introduced into market. At the beginning, carbon fibre was appreciated bacause of its degree of freedom of form and its flexibility compared with solid carbon/graphite block. Main applications were: heat resistant, refractory or ablative materials. In 1959, rayon based carbon fibre with high strength and high modulus properties was introduced under a tradename of Thornel 25 by Union Carbide Corp. USA. Since then carbon fibre has come into the spotlight as a reinforcing material in the composite for structural usage.Then an intensive research work has been carried out to find the more suitable raw materials for carbon fibre (precursor) in UK and in Japan, Dr. Shindo, Osaka Industrial Institute of Japan has succeded in making carbon fibre from acrylic fibre in 1961. The scientists of RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment, U. K.) have invented the manufacturing technology of carbon fibre based on PAN (polyacrylonitrile) in 1964. The mechanical properties of them were far excellent compared with that of rayon based carbon fibre. Since then, PAN has established the position of precursor and still the most important precursor for structural use carbon fibre.On the other hand in order to reduce the cost, a number of extensive work has been done to develop carbon fibre based on petroleum pitch or on coal pitch. Nowadays high performance carbon fibre based on pitch is industrialized by Union Carbide and also general purpose carbon fibre based on pitch has been commercialized by Kureha Chemical Co, Japan.With regards to the applications, high performance PAN based carbon fibre paves the way for reinforced resin structural materials for aerospace applications. With an increasing performance requirements from aerospace industry, carbon fibre is moving to the second phase in terms of its properties to meet these requirements. A new generation type of carbon fibre is now under development by a number of manufacturers.In this paper, the trend of carbon fibre including its characteristics applications and market estimation are reviewed.