Who doesn’t love seeing things being crushed to bits and pieces? Thanks to YouTubers and their hydraulic press channels, people get their daily dose of crushing videos as they put their hydraulic presses to the test against different matter. This time it featured the hydraulic press vs carbon fiber battle royale.
Carbon fiber is a sturdy material which is lightweight and highly resistant to chemical reactions. In addition to that, it also has high-temperature tolerance and low thermal expansion which makes it the perfect candidate to use as a building material for construction, energy, military and aerospace industries. The only drawback of carbon fiber is that it’s quite difficult to produce which results in its high costing price. But can carbon fiber withstand the grueling crushing from a 100-ton hydraulic press?
For the demonstration in his own video, Lauri Vuohensilta, owner of one of the most famous channels, used four different items made of carbon fiber to test the strength of the material. These included three tubes of different diameters and a thick layered plate called a ‘sandwich’. The first tube which was laid down on the surface was crushed easily by the press while the remaining two were placed vertically and showed a little resistance but eventually gave in. The sandwich, however, was quite difficult to crush and showed the real strength of carbon fiber.
Even after Vuohensilta changed the crushing tool and used a large hex nut on the plate, it barely managed to penetrate through the initial layers while the rest of the plate was still in a good shape. So, this proved that carbon fiber is the ultimate champion of resistance and its high costs are justifiable to some extent as well.
