Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisny
Probably a dumb question, but does this use of carbon fiber mean a decrease in safety? Clearly they wouldn't do that, so my real question is how does carbon fiber maintain strength?
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Carbon fiber composite materials are silly strong. Like, blow your mind, "how in the hell did they do that" strong. The key difference -- when compared to something like steel -- is that they're brittle. When CF parts fail, they splinter or shatter. You can engineer CF parts that are more flexible, but then you sacrifice a lot of rigidity.
This means that CF parts are usually reserved for the core of the chassis; the parts that aren't meant to deform in a crash, and are then surrounded by materials that deform more predictably in the crash energy absorption zones.