Características e aplicações de fibra de carbono em projeto de design de produto

Abstract

Each design project has its particularities and needs and, in order to meet optimally the proposed use and the design requirements, the choice of material is paramount. This work contains the composite materials, technological materials capable of uniting properties of common materials, increasing performance and matching properties. Among the composite materials, there is carbon fiber, a material that offers the best strength-to-weight reasons between all known materials and which together with the epoxy resin has a unique combination of properties. The properties of the combination of carbon fiber and epoxy are ideal for the product design chosen (a steering wheel for Formula-style race car) that requires toughness and good resistance using lightweight. Properties, material classification and most used manufacturing processes, therefore, will be presented, focusing in demonstrating the entire mold production process and manual lamination. Including development steps of design project that contains project conceptualization steps, generation and selection of alternatives based on project requisites and ergonomic specifications, target audience research, 2D and 3D modeling of the selected alternative, production and tests of volumetric models and mock-up, made with samples of the adequate ergonomic percentiles, use of decision matrix to review the selected models, model adequation according to the decision matrix analysis, using MESCRAI methods and addition of the golden proportion. Moldmanufacturing, mold releasers application and manual lamination process demonstration and further finishing, like painting and polishing. The processes described were chosen, based on a main parameter of manufacturing of a laminated part out of the industrial environment, and focusing on accessible methods so that Formula SAE and other academic members can reproduce the whole process without major problems, using the same techniques employed to build the prototype presented in this work. After all the steps a feedback of the process will be given, presenting faults and successes and providing product and method suggestions that had more satisfactory results comparing to others available in the market. As a complement to the main objective, which is the manufactuing of a laminated prototype with carbon fiber without industrial resources, the concept of “do it yourself” was used, that has the main foundation of providing the developed project so that other interested, can, through this work, rebuild the same product or use the presented knowledge to fabricate a new project. For this, sites that provide experience exchange and ability to store and consult new projects were used.