Boron fiber
Boron fiber or boron filament is an amorphous product which represents the major industrial use of elemental boron. Boron fiber manifests a combination of high strength and high elastic modulus.
A common use of boron fibers is in the construction of high tensile strength tapes. Boron fiber use results in high-strength, lightweight materials that are used chiefly for advanced aerospace structures as a component of composite materials, as well as limited production consumer and sporting goods such as golf clubs and fishing rods.[1][2]
One of the uses of boron fiber composites was the horizontal tail surfaces of the F-14 Tomcat fighter. This was done because carbon fiber composites were not then developed to the point they could be used, as they were in many subsequent aircraft designs.[3] Boron fiber is a primary reinforcement constituent in Hy-Bor, a prepreg blend of boron fiber and carbon fiber primarily used for high-performance aerospace and sporting goods applications.
In the production process, elemental boron is deposited on an even tungsten wire substrate which produces diameters of 4.0 mil (102 micron) and 5.6 mil (142 micron). It consists of a fully borided tungsten core with amorphous boron.[4][5][6]
Boron fibers and sub-millimeter sized crystalline boron springs are produced by laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition. Translation of the focused laser beam allows to produce even complex helical structures. Such structures show good mechanical properties (elastic modulus 450 GPa, fracture strain 3.7%, fracture stress 17 GPa) and can be applied as reinforcement of ceramics or in micromechanical systems.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ Herring, H. W. (1966). "Selected Mechanical and Physical Properties of Boron Filaments" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved September 20, 2008.
- ^ Layden, G. K. (1973). "Fracture behaviour of boron filaments". Journal of Materials Science. 8 (11): 1581–1589. Bibcode:1973JMatS...8.1581L. doi:10.1007/BF00754893. S2CID 136959123.
- ^ "Boron fiber: The original high-performance fiber". www.compositesworld.com. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
- ^ Kostick, Dennis S. (2006). "Mineral Yearbook: Boron" (PDF). United States Geological Survey. Retrieved September 20, 2008.
- ^ Cooke, Theodore F. (1991). "Inorganic Fibers—A Literature Review". Journal of the American Ceramic Society. 74 (12): 2959–2978. doi:10.1111/j.1151-2916.1991.tb04289.x.
- ^ "Boron Fiber". Specialty Materials. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014.
- ^ Johansson, S.; Schweitz, Jan-Åke; Westberg, Helena; Boman, Mats (1992). "Microfabrication of three-dimensional boron structures by laser chemical processing". Journal of Applied Physics. 72 (12): 5956–5963. Bibcode:1992JAP....72.5956J. doi:10.1063/1.351904.
