I thought this was an interesting read - it came from TAP PLASTICS located in Bellevue and Seattle

WHERE IS THE CARBON

If you have been looking for carbon fiber you have probably noticed that it is hard to find. Where did it go? Well, believe it or not, there has been a worldwide shortage of carbon fiber because it is being bought by three main users faster than it can be produced

The first is the military.
Since carbon is up to 100 times lighter than some metals, it is ideal for aircraft. The F-22 Raptor has over 350 carbon/epoxy parts. Nearly 1/3 of the Joint Strike Fighter Plane will be made of carbon and fiberglass.
Besides these two aircraft, carbon is also used for Blackhawk helicopters, body armor, helmets, holsters, and countless other military applications. These applications are on top of the already huge use of carbon in stealth technology.


The second big buyer of carbon is the Airbus company.
The Airbus Superjumbo A 380 and A350 are built with a great deal of carbon fiber. The A 380 is due to be released this year, so they are still in the production stages. This plane is huge. Note the double row of windows along the whole length of the plane. It will hold 850 passengers and has a wingspan greater than the length of a football field!

The third buyer is Boeing.
They are making the 787 Dreamliner. It is 50% carbon fiber and is so light that it will be able to fly from England to Austrailia without refueling. It is just now being built and is expected to fly in 2008.
So, with these huge buyers out there, finding carbon fiber is harder than ever. Many suppliers on the web are showing “Out of Stock” for all their carbon. We were able to obtain some or a period of time, but now even we must admit, we are “Out of Stock.”
So what is a high performance composite fabricator to do? Consider using S-2 glass. S-2 glass is a high performance fabric that was developed originally for military applications. It is 30% stronger and 15% stiffer than E-glass. It comes 30” wide in two weights: 3.7 oz. and 5.6oz. On of the big advantages of S-2 glass is that it is compatible with both polyester and epoxy resins, unlike carbon. At a fraction of the cost of carbon, this might be the solution you are looking for! Give it a try.
When will carbon be plentiful again? We don’t know. The industry is building new production plants to meet this demand; however the first plant is not expected to be completed until 2007. So this shortage could be with us a while. In the mean time, keep checking our website for the latest developments.

 

Interesting, and good to know. Thanks for the info.

 

Carbon is over rated.....Im more of a useage than asthetics person. But, to each his own eh...

 

Im not a fan of Carbon Fiber either but just thought id pass it along! i found it interesting

 

The factory building the carbon parts for the dreamliner is down south, towards Grahm I wanna say. I was told, but I forgot. we put in a bunch of new data's for them.

 

carbon fiber itself is awesome stuff...a lot of people like it for accents on the car not for actual useage. but look at nissan on some special edition r34 skylines they build the body out of CF and it was 10x stronger and lighter than anything else. ferrari, porsche, lambo, and ccr/ccx are all built out of carbon now. composite is so much stronger than metal its not even funny....i think its going to get harder to find as time goes buy, and the sad part is the stuff we get for our cars has a shelft life due to the resin used on some cheaper stuff is starting to not hold up.

 

isnt one of those high end car manufactuers using CF for brake pads??? thats just nuts...

 

Actually, the rotors and pads are of carbon fiber, the sets run about $20k+ a set from what I was told.

 

See, yeah, accents, spoilers that are for looks..not my fancy.

But you start gettin into something, say like Bugatti....yeahhhh....

 

I read that a few months ago... Amazed that the Boeing Plane take SOOO much CF

 

yea...my brother is going to wsu in the mech engineering program and he is working for a company in cali for a class and he was telling me about the composites they are using are flipping nuts! the lug nuts i got for my 240sx are composite and where like 150bux for the set wholesale its nuts!!!

yea porsche uses a carbon ceramic for pads and rotors 10k or so for the kit...but OMG they stop you like a ****!!! i drove a 99 and 01 911 a few months back that sob stops from 120 faster tahn any other car i drove...btw i was in 2nd great tooo :D

 

Dangg. CF is okay to me. Sux for others that want CF pieces.

 

never was a big fan of cf.. although it is pretty to look at....

sucks though for those who live and die by it

 

I work at on the 787 development at Boeing. We haven't started using very much yet. We've done some testing and some parts for the first 787, but not enough yet to really impact supply. Most of the carbon fiber sections are being made in South Carolina, Italy, Kansas, and Japan. A few small parts are being made in Frederickson (WA state), and a few others here and there. Imagine what happens when we go to into full production of building 14 planes a month...

The Airbus A380 doesn't actually use that much. They use more of a product called "Glare" that I believe is still aluminum based. Their A350 has yet to reach a final product definition, indeed that program hasn't even been launched yet, so it's not using any carbon fiber now.

However, we do use a lot in our military operations, as does Lockheed Martin.

So...the moral of the story is that if you think it's bad now, wait a few years until all these planes are in full up production...

Sorry if I just rambled too many mundane details about airplanes on an automotive site...

 

Ah..cool. They it was told to me was they were supplying most of the parts. Makes sense now.