Most of the skis are reinforced with glass, because it is cheaper and easy to find. Some people could maybe be interested in playing with other reinforcement fibers.
Here are some data for the fibers alone (no epoxy around):
I found basalt fiber (it is a igneous rock) on swiss-composite.ch. The fiber is ligheter and stiffer than glass, and a little bit cheaper.
Zylon (regular and Hign Modulus) is a new polymer made by Toyobo (Japan). It is the best reinforcement material around today. It is lighter and stiffer than carbon, and more shock-resistant than kevlar. It is now used for armoured vest.
davide wrote:
I found basalt fiber (it is a igneous rock) on swiss-composite.ch. The fiber is ligheter and stiffer than glass, and a little bit cheaper.
I like the sound of that! Especially the cheaper part. Any specific info about the prices?
At swiss-composite the glass (UD/biax/triax) costs about 3/4 CHF per square meter and 100g/m2. Basalt fibers (only UD) costs 2CHF/m2/100g.
Usually glass it is cheaper than that, but they sell also small quantity, so they charge more.
Actually basalt is an effusive rock, if I remeber well.
It should be nice to found some zylon. I have no idea about the price, probably high.
Don't forget about the "melting" of the glassfibers for example when they are curing in the epoxy. It brings the extra strength. Therefore I think such a table should be with epoxy or something similar.
If I remeber well the properties listed above are for the fibers only.
But maybe I made some mistakes. I will check it. Anyway the trend is pretty much the same.
I had also some data for the fiber impregnated, and the E modulus was lower: the epoxy is less stiff than the fibers, so the tensile stiffness is lowered.
a year ago when basalt fibres were aviable for the first time i ordered some of this stuff.
sadly at this moment there was only 500g/m2 tissue aviable. so...i don`t have to mention that this stuff was waaaaay too heavy. the fibres were horribly thick and not really ideal for the purpose of building a skateboard.
but what i recognized already a year ago: these fibres would be amazing, if they just were aviable in lighter tissues - an look what we have now
so my impression was that basalt has similar characteristics like carbon. nearly the same strenght etc.
so it made a lot of fun working with it. and it`s even cooler if you imagine you`re working with a tissue made out of stone.
1. Your data makes is look like basalt is actually heavier than glass while most of the marketing lines point to the opposite. Is one measure for the cloth and another for a solid peice of material?
2. The last line also shows that basalt can withstand less strech (translates into ski flex) before the fibers start to break. I would think that would be a problem in ski building. Any comments?
