The Development of Carbon Fibre and its Composites in China

Abstract

Research and applications of glass fibres and their composites, which serve as the first generation of composite materials to be used in engineering structural materials in China, have been started since the mid 1950’s. At present, an all-round system for research, design, production and education in the field of glass fibre composites in our country has been established. The glass fibre composites have come to play more and more an important role in various sectors of the national economy in China. As we all know, the glass fibre composites possess high tensile strength qualities, but have not been success in developing high modulus-to-weight ratio qualities (as well as high temperature resistance) which will be required in those application which is sensitive to stiffness-to-weight ratio, or under very severe technical environments. So that, we began our research and development on carbon fibre in early 1960’s, although of relatively poor quality initially. Following is a brief account on the work on carbon fibres and their composites in China during recent years.