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      06-21-2012, 09:37 AM   #58
mkoesel
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Quote:
Originally Posted by swamp2 View Post
You have this quite backwards.

Particularly with carbon fiber, as opposed to other composites such as glass fibers or others, material costs are almost for sure going to dominate total body manufacturing cost.

See the following from a pretty good MIT PhD thesis from 2006.
This is an interesting study.

The first thing that comes to mind here is what exactly constitutes raw material. When speaking about the costs up until now, I was imagining the material costs of CF to be only that of the actual carbon itself (or carbon compound as it may be - I don't know the specifics of that) - not the costs associated with refining it into a useable fiber or weave of fibers. I.e. I was considering the latter to be associated with manufacturing or production, not material itself.

In other words, there is something of an apples to oranges comparison here. Do you see what I am referring to? A bit like comparing the cost of wood to the cost of paper. Or perhaps, like comparing the cost of cotton fabric to the cost of corn.
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