Why carbon fibre?
Among sports car enthusiasts, carbon fibre wheels are on the shortlist of dream components for high-performance vehicles. In the rarefied world of supercars only European sports car maker Koenigsegg has previously offered optional carbon fibre wheels, along with several after-market suppliers.
Lowering overall kerb weight in general to a car’s dynamics, but a reduction in unsprung weight (those components not supported by the suspension) can have a significant impact on handling and performance. Carbon fibre wheels can be as much as 50 percent lighter than conventional alloy wheels.
Less unsprung weight helps performance vehicles start, stop and turn faster by reducing wheel rotational inertia, dramatically improving response time to driver input. Lower unsprung weight also translates to suspension components not having to work so hard to keep the tyres in contact with the road over undulating broken surfaces.
Manufacturing carbon fibre wheels begins with the creation of the preformed internal carbon structure, composed of precisely manufactured carbon strands arrayed into woven fabrics. The elements are then placed into a mold using stateof-the-art manufacturing techniques.
An RFID chip with a unique tracking number is embedded into this structure, and each wheel is individually entered into a quality assurance system. Once this structure is assembled, it’s infused with resin and cured at high temperatures.
This process results in a one-piece wheel that ensures maximum strength – eliminating the need to bond or glue the wheel’s spokes or barrel components together. As the wheel cures, 61 individual checks and more than 246,000 data points are logged before it’s released from the machine.
To guarantee quality parts, the cured wheels are analysed using a 3D computerised tomography (CT) imaging process, in which more than 18,000 X-ray images are taken. If the wheel passes inspection, it undergoes machining for the valve stem and mounting hardware holes before it gets painted, coated, assembled, dimensionally checked and shipped to the Flat Rock Assembly Plant in North America for installation on the Shelby GT350R Mustang.