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Originally Posted by greencactus3
lets not forget Lexan too. im sure most teams have used or uses plenty.
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Which weighs the same as aluminum.
Also Ti is half the strength of steel at half the weight. As for the welding comment yes you have to properly back gas it but you should be with all you welding already. Granted a Ti fire is is one of the scariest things that can happen in a machine shop.
To use carbon fiber and cure it properly you need to either autoclave or vaccum bag a prepreg, facilities most people don't have access to. And it is important to understand the influence of directional orientation of fibers. For instance in carbon fiber bicycle design you trade off which directions you want to flex in for compliance to road but also where you need rigidity to minimize drivetrain losses due to flex. The advantage to CF is deciding where you want the strength.
Some light strong polymers include Polyetheretherketone, or PEEK. Which is a plastic with a low creep value. Cost is on the order of $30 a lb last I checked. PEI, polyetherimide(?), which has the trade name Ultem is another strong plastic.
The real questions you should ask are:
What property is most important to me?
Tensile strenght, compressive strength, flexural strenght, impact strenght?
Are thermal effects on properties important?
Is corrosion an issue?
There are many more but the material choice is application dependent.
Sorry for the rambling
Pete