The popularity of

carbon fibre
Carbon fibre has certainly been in the headlines recently,
following the massive investment in carbon composite
technologies for the new Airbus and Boeing aircraft.
Amanda Jacob reviews some more growth areas.
riefcases, pens, iPod cases, furniture
and even jewellery the number of
consumer products making use of
carbon fibre is growing. The
traditional high-volume markets of
aerospace and sports equipment are also
continuing to grow, and other so-called
industrial applications such as pressure
vessels and wind turbines are joining them,
leading some industry analysts to herald this
as the era of advanced composites.

Aircraft
The new Boeing B787 and Airbus A380 are
seen as an indication of a step change in the
use of composites in commercial aviation.
Carbon fibre supplier Toray Industries says
that along with the recovery in aircraft
demand, the aircraft industry is undergoing a
rapid shift to composite materials in the
development programmes for new aircraft
and is facing what it calls a historic
expansion of demand for such materials.
For Toray growth is being led by the B787
(scheduled to enter service in 2008). The
company is currently expanding its carbon
fibre and prepreg production capacity and
establishing a global supply network.
Capacity increases are expensive, one of the
reasons that carbon fibre supply and demand
do not always tally. An 8 billion Yen project to
increase carbon fibre capacity at its French
subsidiary, SOFICAR, is scheduled to come
on stream in August 2007. A 25 billion Yen

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March 2006

expansion already underway at its facility in

Ehime, Japan, is scheduled to come on stream
in January 2007. These projects will take the
groups total production capacity to around
13 900 tons/year by August 2007.

Global demand for

PAN-based carbon fibres
is expected to grow at
over 10% a year.
Other carbon fibre manufacturers are also
increasing capacity to keep pace with
demand. Hexcel Corp is building a carbon

fibre plant near Madrid, Spain, and in the

USA it is adding another carbon fibre line at
its Salt Lake City, Utah, facility and additional
capacity at its Decatur, Alabama, plant. The
new US line will be aerospace qualified by the
end of 2007 and the Spanish line in 2008.
These lines are part of a US$100 million
project that will increase Hexcels global
carbon fibre capacity by about 50%.
Approximately half of this capacity
expansion will be provided by the new
Spanish plant, where one carbon fibre line
will be installed initially, with space to add
further lines as required to meet demand
from new programmes. This expansion is
designed to support the growth of its
European aerospace customers such as
Airbus, Dassault, Eurocopter and EADS.

This graph indicates the Increasing use of composites in commercial aircraft. (Source: Hexcel Corp.)

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Carbon composite pressure vessels are used for

carrying natural gas to fuel for buses, other utility
vehicles and private cars.

Spectrum Aeronauticals Spectrum 33 air taxi is manufactured from carbon fibre composite using filament winding.

The company is also investing $20 million

in new equipment for prepreg production in
the UK, Spain, Germany and France, again to
meet the demands of the aerospace industry.
Hexcel has already begun expanding its
formulated resin capability in Duxford, UK,
and has added a new prepreg line at its plant
in Parla, Spain, both to be fully operational
this year. New prepreg capacity is to be
installed in Stade, Germany, and Nantes,
France, where Hexcel will set up prepreg
production facilities close to Airbus locations.
Airbus will be the primary customer for
prepregs produced at each location. The new
lines are expected to operational by
December 2006.

will grow at over 10% a year, from around

25 000 tons in 2005, reaching 34 000 tons in
2008. Torays strategy is to strengthen its
global supply system via its three existing
bases in Japan, the USA and France. It
intends to increase its share of the global
carbon fibre market to about 40% (from
34% in 2004) and to achieve sales of over
110 billion Yen by 2010 in its advanced
composite materials business.
Analysts estimate that industrial applications will account for over half of the global
carbon fibre consumption by 2009. Aerospace applications will increase their share to
around 30%, while the sporting goods sector,
while still growing, will see its share of the
total market fall slightly to around 16%.

Industrial
Outside of aerospace, Toray is also seeing
increasing demand from large-scale
industrial applications requiring carbon
fibre. These include pressure vessels, rotor
blades for wind turbines and automotive
projects progressing from test phases into
mass production. It also notes increasing
demand in Asia (led by China) from the civil
engineering and construction sectors.
Toray believes that global demand for
polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon fibres

Pressure vessels
Composite pressure vessels are finding an
increasing number of applications. One
important, and growing, market is for
carrying pressurised natural gas as a fuel for
buses and other utility vehicles. It is
estimated that up to 50 million natural gas
vehicles will be in operation by 2020 (see
Reinforced Plastics, February 2006, pages 3841). Another alternative fuel, hydrogen, also
requires pressure vessels to contain the

compressed hydrogen. Canadian company

Dynetek develops lightweight CNG and
compressed hydrogen cylinders. Its DyneCell cylinder is built from a seamless thin
wall aluminium liner with a carbon fibre
overwrap. Quantum-Tecstar has developed
an ultra-lightweight advanced composite
cylinder design for compressed hydrogen
that can hold up to 10 000 psi (70 MPa).
One of the challenges with hydrogen
storage is system cost. In a presentation at the
Filament Winding 2005 conference in
Brussels, organised by Material SA, WolfUlrich Herres at Adam Opel AG reported that
carbon fibres are the cost driver of high
pressure hydrogen storage systems, accounting for around 50% of the total cost of a
storage system.

Automotive
Carbon composite has traditionally been
the building block of high performance
race cars and niche sports cars where
performance outweighs price considerations. But there are signs that carbon fibre is
making its way into more mainstream
applications. The BMW M6 features a
carbon fibre roof which the company says
lowers the cars centre of gravity,
contributing to better agility. Goodyear
has just announced a new tyre which
includes a high tech carbon fibre insert
which is said to provide stiffness for
responsive handling and steering precision.
And on page 10 of this issue a carbon fibre
air intake manifold promises lower weight
and higher power than the stock
aluminium part it replaces.
March 2006

REINFORCEDplastics

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paramount in this industry, Spencer

emphasised, and in this respect it is more
more akin to high quality aerospace
applications. But much work still needs to be
done, especially on automated manufacture
and non-destructive testing (NDT), which
are essential on such large oilfield parts.

Wind energy

Bicycles, tennis racquets, fishing rods, golf clubs,

hockey sticks, snowboards, canoes the list of high
performance sports equipment relying on the strength
and low weight of carbon composites goes on. This
market will continue but growth is likely to be slower
than in industrial applications. (Picture Photodisc Green.
Karl Weatherly.)

Oil
Carbon fibre materials offer the opportunity
to enable new, lower cost, deepwater oilfield
solutions. As oil reserves shrink, deeper water
exploration is needed. According to Brian E.
Spencer of Spencer Composites Corp, the oil
industry is a very conservative about the use
of new materials because of the enormous
environmental and economic pressures
involved (namely, the risk of oil spills), but he
says that it is beginning to see the potential of
composites. Speaking at the Filament
Winding 2005 conference, Spencer noted that
oilfield applications for composites include
tension leg platforms (TLPs), spars and
drilling risers, choke and kill lines, and
pressure vessels. Quality and reliability are

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March 2006

The global wind energy industry is a high

volume market for composites and it shows
no sign of slowing, experiencing another
record year in 2005. According to the figures
just released by the Global Wind Energy
Council (GWEC), 11 769 megawatts (MW)
were installed in 2005, a 43.4% increase in
annual additions to the global market from
the previous year. The total value of new
generating equipment installed was over

12 billion (US$14 billion). Total installed
wind power capacity now stands at
59 322 MW worldwide, up 25% from 2004.
Wind turbine blade manufacturers are
reluctant to reveal their manufacturing technologies but the trend towards larger wind
turbines is forcing rotor blade designers to
consider the use of carbon fibre to reduce the
weight while maintaining the stiffness of the
blade. Spanish turbine manufacturer Gamesa, for example, uses carbon/epoxy prepregs
in its G87 and G90 2 MW turbines. The 44 m
long blade of the G90 weighs approximately
7000 kg. In March 2005, carbon fibre supplier
Zoltek announced a long-term supply
agreement with Fiberblade SA (a Gamesa
business unit) under which it said it expected
to provide Fiberblade with US$65-75 million
of carbon fibre and carbon fibre materials

The Vestas V90 3 MW turbine employs carbon fibre in

its 44 m long rotor blades to reduce weight.
(Picture courtesy of Vestas Wind Systems AS.)

over the first three years of the project for the

manufacture of rotor blades.
Vestas Wind Systems V90 3 MW turbine
features a 44 m long blade in which glass
fibre components have been replaced by
carbon fibre to make the blade lighter. This
means the 44 m blade weighs the same as the
39 m blade on the companys V80 2 MW
turbine. Vestas blade designers admit that
carbon fibre would not be an immediate
choice since it is a conductive material, but
it has the characteristics that the company
needs for constructing a lighter turbine and
so a lightning protection system was
developed to take the fibres conducting
characteristics into account.

Toray Industries; www.toray.com

Hexcel Corp; www.hexcel.com

Aramid
100 Million

Gamesa; www.gamesa.es
Vestas Wind Systems; www.vestas.com
GWEC; www.gwec.net

Carbon
50 Million

Quantum Technologies; www.gtww.com

Dynetek; www.dynetek.com
Spencer Composites Corp;
www.spencercomposites.com
Glass
4 Billion

The composite reinforcement market is dominated by

glass as this chart of the world reinforcement
consumption (lbs) shows. (Source: Owens Corning.)

Filament Winding 2005; www.material.be

Zoltek; www.zoltek.com