Carbon Fiber Wheels

Sounds all fancy and high-tech, right? That's because it is. Ready to go back to Chemistry Class? Carbon Fiber is something that is basically made out of carbon atoms. These atoms are bonded together to form a twisted yarn type of structure that's parallel to the axis of the actual fiber. Since Carbon Fiber is built to be light, but heavy at the same time, many people choose this for their car hoods, their surfboards, and anything with that sort of density. It's weird because even though Carbon Fiber is strong enough not to be bent, it is brittle enough to crack when you hit it with a hammer.

I know you just want a brief history, right? Okay, so in 1958, a man tried one method of creating this element, but it failed. So it was tried again in 1960 by someone else and thrived because it had 55% more Carbon and contained properties that were more useful. By 1963, it was being used by Rolls-Royce and by the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Rolls-Royce had big plans for this new material; the objective was to manufacture a new RB-211 aero engine using nothing but Carbon Fiber (RB-211 is a turbo fan for planes... in case you didn't know). Of course, someone had to open their mouth and say, "Well what's going to happen when something bad presents itself?", "What if this doesn't work like it's supposed to?", and more questions as such. Since Rolls-Royce gave such good reasons and answers for each question someone had come up with, the House of Commons eventually allowed it and because of this, Rolls-Royce ended up being the leading manufacturer of Carbon Fiber parts; but only for a short amount of time. Regrettably, Rolls-Royce took advantage of this privilege by using it in the engine... which caused it to be very vulnerable to damage.

Since Rolls-Royce had crashed and burned at the time, a company called Courtaulds took over and kept producing this carbon, but manufactured this Fiber for Sports and Aerospace equipment-which, as you can tell, was a milestone. When this company made enough money by supplying automotive companies with the Fiber, they decided to open a second factory in California... but that crashed and burned, too. It's pretty depressing, but true. There weren't enough funds, so they eventually had to cut the business short and end it there. By that time, there were other experiments exploring how strong the Carbon Fiber can really be; they found that they can build it with 85% more fiber; which makes it much more stronger.

Since then, there has been many developments and innovations when it comes to pretty much anything. There has been particular talk about a Carbon Fiber wheel. Have you heard about it? If you're into all this "car stuff", then you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. As you know, Carbon Fiber can be very light; and when it comes to OEM wheels on your car, the lighter it is, the faster you go. There's a picture that I found where a wheel is on a scale and it literally weighs 2.67 pounds. I'm not even joking. Even though this may seem great and all, a lot of questions surface like, "Is that really possible? If it's so light, how is it going to hold the weight of the actual car? I'm sure it's expensive, right?" There has been talk about this wheel, but no real manufacturing has occurred. I think the closest you'll get to Carbon Fiber is either the Magnesium Wheels or the fiber that come in your walnuts.