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Carbon Fibre

Carbon Fibre, or "Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer" (CFRP) to give it its full name, is a man-made material used across the engineering spectrum. It is made using yarns of Carbon, commonly woven bi-directionally into a uniform cloth with all strands parallelised, and subsequently set into shape within a plastic polymer, usually epoxy, using a mould, heat and pressure. The epoxy choice is critical, as a large part of the Carbon Fibre fabric's ultimate characteristics will be dictated by the epoxy used.

All grades, shapes and specifications of Carbon Fibre are available directly through Integ Metals, so please feel free to read through the information on this page for reference, or contact us directly with your requirements.

Woven Filaments & Yarn

Its composition at fibre stage can vary depending on how the original Carbon Polymer was created, with the most common, PAN (Polyacrylonitrile), accounting for 90% of Carbon Fibre production. Other sources are Rayon and Petroleum Pitch Polymers, but these are less widely used. In its unwoven form, Carbon Fibre is spun into a single yarn- known as a tow- made up of 1000s of individual filaments, and it is the count of these filaments which give us the numbers we associate with Carbon Fibre grades, I.e. 1k, 12k etc. The tensile strength of the individual fibre yarns is rated in Ksi and gives us the modulus bands e.g. T700, T1000 etc. In Carbon Fibre cloth, the lower the filament count, the more pliant and flexible the fabric is for use on complex shapes. As the count increases, they are less flexible, but add strength over greater spans.

Carbon Fibre's key characteristics of super light weight, very high strength and unparalleled formability have made it indisposable to engineers in Aerospace, Automotive, Construction Medical, Marine, and Sports & Leisure industries.