Here’s something a little different from the usual automotive content we provide. You won’t find any tough supercars or off-roaders in the video above, but you will see some materials that are often touted as being used throughout the automotive industry that are subjected to extreme stress. Carbon fiber is among them, and we know how manufacturers like to brag about using it. How to deal with unrelenting hydraulic compressive force?
For the record, we are not engineers and this video does not claim to present a proper scientific study. The crew at Crazy Hydraulic Press (yes, spelled with an i) on YouTube create a circular cylinder of the same size, place it in the press, and press the smash button. In addition to carbon fiber, we see cylinders of aluminum, brass, titanium, low-grade steel, stainless steel, PVC, and acrylic, all of which are subjected to the same stress. The scale measures the applied force in kilograms, with the maximum force recorded for each material. It’s that simple.
It should also be noted that the pipe is weighed before testing. As you might expect, acrylic is the lightest at 9 grams, with PVC and carbon fiber bonded at 11 g. On the heavy end is steel, with low quality at 58 g and stainless at 59 g. Aluminum measures 20 g, with titanium at 33 g and brass at 45 g.
As for testing, the acrylic actually held up really well, hitting a pressure of 1,538 kilograms before deforming and breaking. It outperformed PVC, which reached a maximum of 1,004 kg before losing strength. But you didn’t click on this article to hear about how the pipes in your home handle a fat press. You want to know how strong carbon fiber is.
The material touted by brands such as McLaren and Lamborghini reaches a pressure of 2,998 kg. It didn’t break at that point, but instead began to peel and peel off with the pressure remaining steady at around 2,000 kg until only the pile of bits and strands remained. Aluminum peaked higher at 3,840 kg, and titanium – another exotic material automakers sometimes mention – reached 9,190 kg, although deformed before peak stress.
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The star of the high strength of this particular test, however, is the stainless steel. It withstood the pressure of 15,800 kg before completely collapsing under the force. That’s nearly 35,000 pounds, and when it was removed from the press, the steel was too hot to touch. It endures more than five times the strength compared to carbon fiber, but interestingly, it’s also roughly five times heavier.
Again, this is not a scientific test. But it’s certainly interesting to see what happens to these materials under such stress.
