I need to join two 86 cm lengths of 4 mm diameter carbon fibre rod end-to-end to make a hoop of 55 cm diameter. Carbon fibre rod is pretty tough stuff and my attempts so far (with the materials I had to hand) haven't been too successful!
I first tried brass tube - this simply snapped with a bang (failing in tension on the outside of the curve, as you'd expect).
I had some 4 mm ID carbon fibre tube, so I tried reinforcing that with several alternating layers of lengthwise carbon tow and wound carbon tow. That held but (much to my surprise) bent, to about a 25 degree angle.
So ... I'm thinking some kind of thicker wall seamless metal tubing, but I'm not an engineer so would welcome any advice on material and source. I only need a short length (maybe 8 cm total) ... Googling the interweb it seems that most suppliers are 'industrial' and minimum order quantities tend to be about 5 metres And what material would be best? Steel, stainless steel, titanium?
I first tried brass tube - this simply snapped with a bang (failing in tension on the outside of the curve, as you'd expect).
I had some 4 mm ID carbon fibre tube, so I tried reinforcing that with several alternating layers of lengthwise carbon tow and wound carbon tow. That held but (much to my surprise) bent, to about a 25 degree angle.
So ... I'm thinking some kind of thicker wall seamless metal tubing, but I'm not an engineer so would welcome any advice on material and source. I only need a short length (maybe 8 cm total) ... Googling the interweb it seems that most suppliers are 'industrial' and minimum order quantities tend to be about 5 metres And what material would be best? Steel, stainless steel, titanium?