Simple Molding Technology for CFRP Springs

Abstract

  Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (hereafter abbreviated as CFRP) is lightweight and has high strength and has been put to practical use in aircraft fuselages, supercar bodies, and wind turbine blades. In order to reduce the weight of the bottom, attempts have been made to use CFRP for leaf springs for bogies and coil springs for automobiles. As the coefficient of thermal expansion of CFRP is almost zero, it is expected to be a precision spring. As a molding technology, we developed a method of manufacturing a CFRP coil spring with a silicone rubber mold using a carbon fiber cloth. Coil spring constant was 7.0 N/mm.