Race Cars and Carbon Fiber

Racing cars have been a major sport for many years, and the industry of racing has increased since the appearance of F-1 races. Racing cars used to be made from the same material as road cars, that are steel, aluminum and other metals. But on the early 1980s Formula 1 cars underwent some changes, which have become an important part of the design of the car: the use of carbon composite materials to build the chassis.

Today most of the racing cars chassis, which includes the monocoque, suspension, wings and engine cover, are built with carbon fiber.  Carbon fiber reinforced plastic, or CFRP, is a strong, light and very expensive composite material which, because of its mechanical properties is used to build racing cars at every level.

The Ascari Kz1 is a super car made completely from carbon fiber

The four advantages that this kind of material, that other materials don’t have are:

• Super lightweight
• Super strong
• Super stiff
• Can easily be molded into all kinds of different shapes

Also to better understand that carbon fiber is better than steel (commonly used in some parts in road cars) here is a table:

We can see that carbon fiber is almost 3 times stronger and more than 4 times lighter than steel. That is why it is such a good material for racing cars.

Sources:

http://formula1.about.com/od/car1/a/carbon_fiber.htm

http://www.solarnavigator.net/composites/carbon_fibre_and_racing_cars.htm

Pictures:

http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200703/2007-ascari-kz-1r-gt3_460x0w.jpg

http://0.tqn.com/d/formula1/1/G/h/2/-/-/fiber1.jpg