carbon fiber wrap sway bar??
 

i havn't worked with carbon fiber yet(looks like a similar process to FG), but maybe someone here has. i was watching a little piece on tv about carbon fiber being used for stiffening structures and i got to wondering if this could be applied to our sway bars? now i know it sounds unlikely but from what i saw, it might just work and be able to be done at your own home at a fraction of the cost of getting costom ones made. the fronts seem problematic but the rears might work pretty easily. does anyone here have experiance with structural carbon fiber wrap that can put this into perspective?

I don't think it'd work for a sway bar since there's too much twist/flex, it'd crack.

I dont think Carbon Fiber would help with torsional rigidity?

aircraft type allumium wuld be better ???? if you could afford it

it should help with the torsional rigidity if you wrap end to end. stiffness is one of it's main characteristics.

the big question is will it crack? this is where we need someone with experiance. think about some of the cf aplications these days, wheels, strut bars, frames, axles, bodys, masts(boats), everything for race cars and high end street cars, pretty much anything you want to make stronger, stiffer, lighter(like our sway bars).

IDK, maybe im having a huge brain fart right now. But I really don't see how carbon fiber has torsional strength.



Dustin

they wouldn't make driveshafts out of cf if it didn't have torsional strenght.

Ahh good point.

just did a google search for carbon fiber torsional strength and came up with many places saying it has 3 times the ts of steel:eek:!

The issue you're going to have with a sway bar is that it has "arms", unlike a driveshaft. CF will work if you go with a three piece set up, but then you've got issues with putting splines on the end of the main bar so it engages with the arms.
-Bill

Carbon fiber may indeed have torsional strength but I don't believe you'll find it in many applications where repetitive flexing is required. You want springiness, not rigidity. And if you wrap a sway bar with the stuff (as the 2x4 was wrapped in the TV show cited, "Smashlab,") I suspect it will de-laminate from the steel in a hurry.

dcb

i wonder if shaving off 6 flat spots around the bar the whole length(if you took a vertical cross-section it would look like the hex head of a bolt) useing a grinder would keep it from delaminating?
as for the repetitive tension, i would think that a cf control arms are subject to similar forces. also cross braces for airplane wings.

Those types of things dont go through the same flexing as a sway bar.

i found cf sway bars for quads, but of course they weigh much less.
doesn't anyone have experience with this stuff, we need some kind of expert here to give us some concrete facts.

I would love to see any CF sway bar that exists. My engineering training (and limited experience with CF) tells me that a single piece CF bar just won't work, given the inherent loading the bar sees and the inherent performance characteristics of CF.
-Bill