Carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) is a composite material made of carbon fibers set in a polymer resin matrix. The carbon fibers provide strength, while the resin binds the fibers together. CFRP is extremely strong yet lightweight, with carbon fiber being five times stronger than steel but only one-third the weight. CFRP is used in aerospace, aircraft, automotive, sports equipment, civil infrastructure like bridges, and other applications where high strength to weight ratio is important. While costly, CFRP offers advantages over other materials like metals in many structural and mechanical applications.

1. ARK 405 BUILDING MATERIALS
CARBON FIBER–REINFORCED PLASTIC

2. Definition
• Carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic is a composite materials;
composite materials consists of two parts: a matrix and a
reinforcement.
• In CFRP, the reinforcement is carbon fiber, which provides the
strength. The matrix is usually a polymer resin, such as epoxy, to
bind the reinforcements together.
• It is an extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastic.

3. What is Carbon Fiber ?
• Composed of carbon atoms bonded together to
form a long chain.
• A super strong material that's also extremely
lightweight.
• It’s five times stronger than steel , Two times
stiffer, and about Two-Third times less in weight.
• CFRP is a more costly material than its
counterparts in the construction industry, glass
fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) and aramid fiber-
reinforced polymer (AFRP), though CFRP is,
regarded as having superior properties.

4. Properties
• Carbon fiber has very high tensile strength.
• It has low thermal expansion.
• It is a light weight material having low density.
• It is a good conductor of electricity.
• It can wear a high resistance.
• Composites have high stiffness, strength, and toughness at substantially less
weight than metals.
• Composites can be made anisotropic, i.e. have different properties in
different directions, and this can be used to design a more efficient
structure.

5. Advantages
• It has long working life.
• It’s density is less than density
of steel.
• It is insensitive to change in
temperature.
• It’s compressive strength is
greater than all the reinforcing
material.
Disadvantages
• It is very costly.
• It is little harmful for the human body
as it causes lungs cancer.
• The carbon fibers can cause
corrosion when CRP parts are
attached to aluminum.
• Despite its high initial strength-to-
weight ratio, a design limitation of
CFRP is its lack of a definable fatigue
endurance limit.

6. Applications
• It is used in industry for retrofitting to strengthen an existing structure or as
an alternative reinforcing (or pre-stressing) material instead of steel from
the outset of a project.
• Increase the load capacity of old structures (such as columns and bridges).
IN BRIDGESIN COLUMNS

7. Applications
• CFRP can also be applied
to enhance shear strength
of reinforced concrete by
wrapping fabrics or fibers
around the section to be
strengthened. Wrapping
around sections (such as
bridge or building
columns/beams) can also
enhance the ductility of
the section, greatly
increasing the resistance
to collapse under
earthquake loading.
CFRP

8. Other applications
• In aerospace and aircraft industries.
• Automotive body is also made up of the carbon fiber.
CFRP

9. Other applications
• Constructing up of wind mill blades.
• CFRP is used in squash, tennis and badminton racquets(strings).
CFRP

10. Manufacturing Process
The manufacturing is done in 3 major steps:
• The Stabilization stage
• The Carbonization stage
• The Graphitization stage
THE TWO SOURCES OF CFRP
• Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and
• Pitch

11. Manufacturing Process
• In the stabilization stage, the PAN fibers are first stretched to align the febrile
networks within each fiber axis, and they are oxidized in air at about 200 to
220°C while held in tension.
• In carbonization the stabilized fibers are heated until they become
transformed into carbon fibers by the elimination of O,H & N from the
precursor fiber.
• The carbonization heat treatment is usually carried out in inert atmosphere in
the 1000 to 1500°C range. During the carbonization process, fibrils or ribbons
are formed within each fiber that greatly increase the tensile strength of the
material.
• In the third stage , or graphitization treatment is used if an increase in the
modulus of the elasticity is desired at the expense of high tensile strength.

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