Carbon fiber has become so popular, but do you really understand it?

       The advantages of carbon fiber do not need to be repeated. This material is second only to the Boeing 787 in the field of bicycle products, but many of the riders' understanding of carbon fiber only stays on the surface. Of course, it is enough for cycling. Many professional drivers don't know much about bicycles, even if they stay on it for a few hours every day. However, if you are interested, it is not a bad thing to know a little about it.

Carbon cloth

     The first thing to say is the relatively obvious carbon cloth. Carbon fiber is a very fine fiber. To use carbon fiber material, we must first make these fibers into a cloth, which can be layered on one layer. This is carbon fiber cloth.

In the picture, the thicker one is the human hair, the thinner is the carbon fiber.

One-way cloth （UD, unidirectional）

Many riders think that one-way cloth is not good, cheap, and actually not at all. The carbon fiber is bundled, and the carbon fibers are arranged in a row in one direction, which is a one-way cloth. This is just the arrangement of the carbon fibers, and has nothing to do with the quality of the carbon fiber material itself.

  One-way cloth is the most widely used in the frame, and has higher strength along the direction in which the carbon fibers are arranged. It is easier to understand that the sole of the lock shoe is mostly longitudinal rather than lateral, so it is better to use a one-way cloth on the sole of the lock shoe. The same is true of the frame, and the force applied to many parts is directional, so those positions are made with a unidirectional cloth to have higher strength.

    Because the one-way cloth is ugly, so there is a so-called marble line, but few people know how the marble line came. In fact, it is only the treatment of the appearance. The broken carbon fiber is brought to the surface of the already manufactured product, and then the resin is applied, and the vacuum is applied to make the broken slag adhere to it. This is the so-called marble texture. This appearance treatment only achieves an aesthetic effect and does not have any practical effect on the material strength and the like.

Carbon fiber woven  cloth

    Carbon fiber woven cloth is often said to be 1K, 3K, 12K carbon cloth, and it does not matter with carbon fiber itself. 1K means that 1000 carbon fibers are made up and then woven; 3K is 3000, and 12K is 12,000, which is very easy to understand.

kayla carbon

Modulus

Simply put, modulus is hardness. When you hear high-modules, you can think of lighter and harder. The high-carbon carbon fiber is harder, but the harder it is, the better. The design of the frame will also integrate other factors, such as comfort and strength. Corresponding to hardness

Stiffness
Hardness is the modulus mentioned above. There are two different moduli, thin plates of the same thickness, a heavy object in front, and a high modulus material. The deformation of this plate will be smaller, that is, harder. . High modulus carbon fiber is required where higher hardness is required, such as BB.

Strength

It is also the two thin plates above, but this time it is fixed at the upper and lower ends, and then pulled out hard. When it is torn off, it requires more force and greater strength.

Balance

Harder carbon fibers will be less strong, less deformed by force, and more susceptible to damage. Conversely, a softer carbon fiber will be less susceptible to damage. At the same time, harder materials will be more shock-absorbing and the feeling of riding will be even worse. A really good frame will use different carbon fibers in different parts to make the whole car rigid and comfortable.