Advantages:
1. Early stage carbon fiber due to technical reasons, the use of epoxy resin even will decomposition under the sunshine. With the progress of science and technology, the shortcomings of this excellent material are gradually conquered. For example, the K-frame uses a high-grade 16K carbon fiber, the strength of this carbon fiber even more than steel, and has a lifetime commitment to quality assurance.
2. Light weight: In general, carbon fiber as a bicycle material has the following characteristics: 1. Very light weight: about 1200 grams of carbon fiber road frame has been everywhere. As the quality of carbon is only 1.6 g / cm3, so the production of about 1 kg of the frame is not a dream.
3. Better Shock Absorbing: Absorption impact performance is good. Carbon fiber can effectively absorb vibration, and maintain good rigidity. This feature makes it a good competitive class of material.
4. Can produce a variety of shapes of the frame. Differ to the carbon steel frame manufacturing process, carbon fiber frame is generally firstly production of mold, and then put the carbon fiber on the mold, and finally with epoxy resin for bonding. This process can make use of aerodynamics to make a very good frame.
Disadvantages:
Complicate stress calculation. Carbon fiber frame is composed of carbon fiber, which characteristics is strong tensile strength, but the shear strength is weak, that need for complicate stress calculation (longitudinal rigidity, transverse rigidity), according to the calculation of carbon fiber sheet overlap molding. In general, the carbon fiber is quite good against the impact on surface, but anti-puncture ability is very poor.
Very expensive : Compared with the titanium alloy, the price of carbon fiber frame has gone beyond, to the top of the price of carbon fiber frame to tens of thousands, and Konac’s C40 and C50 price even more than $3,000. This is mainly because the carbon fiber frame production process requires a lot of manual, and the high rate of scrap, resulting in a substantial increase in costs.
