Novel Honeycomb Hollow Carbon Fiber Composite

Carbon fiber based composited have enabled advanced aircrafts such as Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 wherein the fuel efficiency has improved by more than 10% by reducing the weight. The commercial carbon fibers have a density of 1.75-1.93 g/cc. There exists an opportunity to further reduce the weight of composites based on carbon fibers. During our past research and phase I work, we have demonstrated a novel method to produce honeycomb hollow carbon fibers with a density of 1.15 g/cc (Figure 1) which has enabled 23% lighter composites with epoxy (Figure 2). In addition, we estimate that further optimization will lead to upto 34% weight reduction. The specific opportunity addressed in phase I is demonstration of initial technical feasibility of producing these honeycomb hollow carbon fiber based composites. We have demonstrated that the specific tensile modulus of honeycomb hollow carbon fibers is 25% higher than commercial off the shelf carbon fibers (e.g. IM7). In addition, exhaustive and thorough customer discovery within the Department of Air Force (DAF) was performed. The exercise led to opportunity for developing a specific carbon fiber composite for a major application within DAF. Air Force Research Laboratory, materials and manufacturing directorate, structural materials division will be the primary customer with a direct transition interest from AFRL materials and manufacturing directorate, Manufacturing and Industrial Technologies Division