RE: carbon fibre driveshafts -Forwarded -Forwarded

[Derek Daily <ddaily@SMTPGW.MITSUICOMTEK.COM>]

OK, 
I'm forwarding this from someone who works intensively in the
"composites" arena.  I apologize for the minor personal BW at top
but...
Steven manufactures carbon, kevlar, fiberglass, etc materials for the
automobile industry, military and most importantly IMO the windsurfing
industry.  He also has a thing for s'WMB and may not take entirely
kind to my forwarding of his description of the Bayerischen (sp?)
driveshaft engineers...he-he-heee ;-)
My question:  Is it possible that reduced wind-up really be what
we're looking for here?  I.e. direct and immediate power and torque
transfer to the wheels...in which case torsionally rigid driveshafts
would have a major advantage?
Derek Daily
90 CQ - wish they could do c.fibre electricals...
86 VW qsw
Received: from [205.162.195.197] by mail.gorge.net (Post.Office MTA v3.1
          release PO203a ID# 0-40184U5000L500S0) with ESMTP id AAA190
          for <ddaily@SMTPGW.MITSUICOMTEK.COM>;
          Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:09:02 -0800
Message-Id: <l03110701b0f424d9aa6e@[205.162.195.197]>
In-Reply-To: <s4cded21.022@SMTPGW.MITSUICOMTEK.COM>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:11:01 -0800
To: Derek Daily <ddaily@SMTPGW.MITSUICOMTEK.COM>
From: Steven Maier <ice@gorge.net>
Subject: Re: syncro:RE: carbon fibre driveshafts -Forwarded

Hi Derek,

How is the new QC treating you?  I am still working on the Syncro, digging
deeper every day.  Will probably finish up just in time for sailing season.
I've been spending a little too much time on my ITB 2002 lately as racing
season starts in a couple months.

As for the "carbon driveshaft", I could add volumns but, I won't.  The most
likely reason for not using one on the car was cost or size constraints,
plain and simple.  Carbon composites do flex (as you well know from
windsurfing) but, that is controled and used to ones advantage.  There
would not be "wind up" in the shaft unless it was designed by a total
idiot.  A drive shaft in designed to be stiff in torsion and bending
(allows for higher shafts speeds without vibrations).  The problem with
carbon driveshafts is that properly designed to take advantage of the
material, they usually end up being larger diameter then their steel
counterparts thus, running into room constraints on some vehicles.

In the Supertouring racing going on there are several cars running carbon
shafts and some of them are having trouble with porly designed shafts.  I
got involved with fixing one teams shaft (I won't say who but, you know my
favored marque) and found the thing "designed by and idiot, yes, they do
exist".  Almost all the NASCAR guyes run carbon shafts and all F1 cars run
them so, they are definately capable of handling the power and RPM given
proper design. Additionally, you definately don't see these guyes dealing
with any "wind up" issues...

Take care and stay in touch.

Steve