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Thursday 7 July 2011

History of Carbon Fiber:


         Dr. Roger Bacon created the first high performance carbon fibers at the Parma Technical Center outside of Cleveland, OH. The first fibers were manufactured by heating strands of rayon until they carbonized. This process proved to be inefficient, as the resulting fibers contained only about 20% carbon and had low strength and stiffness properties. In the early 1960s, a process was developed using polyacrylonitrile as a raw material. This produced a carbon fiber that contained about 55% carbon and had much better properties. The polyacrylonitrile conversion process quickly became the primary method for producing carbon fibers.

On the 14th January 1969, Carr Reinforcements wove the first ever Carbon fibre fabric in the world.

During the 1970s, experimental work to find alternative raw materials led to the introduction of carbon fibers made from a petroleum pitch derived from oil processing. These fibers contained about 85% carbon and had excellent flexural strength.

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