100% 3K Braided Carbon Fiber Rectangular Tube Unidirection Weave

Product Specification

Strong Corrosion Resistance 100% 3K Braided Carbon Fiber Rectangular Tube
 

Braided Carbon Fiber Square Tube is comprised of carbon fiber braid and unidirectional fabrics. This product is ideal for building lightweight frames and structures such as trusses. Our carbon fiber tubes have been engineered to be much stronger under torsional and side loading than pultruded tubing. They’re also significantly lighter than pultruded tubing. Our carbon fiber large tubes have been designed so that the unidirectional layers are captured, eliminating longitudinal cracking and splitting. The finish on this product is different from our other product lines. These tubes show the texture of the carbon fiber braid with a wet and shiny appearance.

Carbon Fiber Rectangular Tube manufactured by using the pultrusion technique in which the high-performance carbon fibres are all oriented parallel to the longitudinal axis (unidirectional) and internally reinforced with more unidirectional carbon fibres laminated by using pullwinding technology to achieve greater resistance to bending and torsion.

This type of profile has a high specific mechanical resistance (related to its weight), lightness, rigidity, great resistance to fatigue and vibrations, resistance to oxidation and corrosion, low coefficient of thermal expansion and durability.

Pultrusion is a technique of continuous production of linear profiles with a constant section. This process has many similarities to extrusion, the main difference is in the feeding system: in extrusion the material is pushed through the matrix (mould), in pultrusion it is extracted from the matrix. This procedure does not allow variations in shape, sections or curves. Products that can be obtained by this process can have sections or thicknesses of up to approximately 15mm, with epoxy resins and up to 70 mm with polyester resins.

Products made with this technology have excellent tensile strength properties due to the linear orientation of the fibres in the direction of axis of the profile; if it is also necessary to have a good transversal resistance, a woven fabric is used as a backing in specific quantities and weights.

Carbon Fiber Tube Applications:

• Light Aircraft
• Prototype Aircraft
• Aerospace
• Radar and GPS antennas
• Communication towers
• Stiffening and reinforcing beams
• Wind power
• Autonomous craft
• Unmanned vehicle capture booms
• Underwater equipment
• Telescope housing
• Large telescope truss tubing
• High Altitude Craft
• Robotic arms
• Transport beams
• Measurement devices
• Electronics housing
• Mining equipment
• Performance arts and production
• Oil and Gas down-hole applications
• Printing rollers and guides
• Truss Structures
• Security gates
• Photography and motion picture
• Energy generation
• Manufacturing beams
• Product distribution
• Medical equipment
• Solar Energy
• Fuel Cell housing

​Carbon Fiber Tube Features:

1. High strength and stiffness to weight
2. Excellent resistance to fatigue
3. Dimensional stability: Low CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion)
4. Resistance to corrosion
5. X-Ray transparency
6. Chemical resistivity

Carbon Fiber Tube Manufacturing Process :

4-Axis braiding is a process in which we braid carbon fibers over a mandrel. The braiding machine stays in one place and an aluminum mandrel traverses inside of the braiding hoop. The layer of braid is then wet-out with epoxy resin at a 2nd stage in the machine. The laminate is then consolidated and cured at 280F.

Braided composite structures offer extreme durability and toughness due to the interlocking fibers and no seams.
If damage does occur, it does not tend to propagate within the structure.

Typically braided carbon tubes have approximately 75% of fibers directly on the axis of the tube. These fibers are continuous fibers from one end of the part to the other. 10 % of the fibers are +/- 45 deg and around 15% are 90 deg (hoop)
We can make some adjustments to the percentages of fiber orientation; however, it is not possible to get high percentages of +/- 45 deg.

The inherent high percentage of fiber on the 0 axis makes a braided tube a very good compression or bending tube.
Because the machine stays in one place and the mandrel traverses, there is no length limitation to the parts that can be built (the building length, oven length, and mandrel lengths are limiting factors, but the process itself is not limited).

We typically braid longer length parts or larger manufacturing runs compared to pre-preg

Braided carbon fiber tubes tend to have more surface ripples and small voids in the laminate. This is not a structural issue but it can be a cosmetic issue and it may have an effect on the OD tolerance of the part.

Examples of some applications for braided tubing

Communications towers, large antenna assemblies, portable antennas, drone wing spars, aircraft structural tubing, sailboat spars, truss tubing, reinforcing tubes, spacer tubes, stiffening tubes, compression struts, GPS towers, high tension cable struts, awning support tubes, structural beams, low interference towers.