Programmable Carbon Fibre

[FoxHound]

Stumbled across this the other day, and naturally thought this to be a useful addition to the F1 circus.
This is also very much here and now, rather than anything a few years off.

The quite spectacularly named Skylar Tibbits goes on.

"We're releasing self-transforming carbon fibre. It's fully cured but designed to be flexible. What we do is we print with different materials on to the carbon fibre to make it active.
The idea here is to take existing material systems like fibres, sheets, strands and three-dimensional objects and program them to change shape and property on demand. What we've done in the past six months is try to develop a suite of materials that have different activation energies, like heat, light, water, air pressure, et cetera."

http://vimeo.com/108391033

They are even working on "programmable rubber":

For shoes, tyres, those kinds of applications, as it gets wet, the grip can change

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... -interview

[SectorOne]

That would be sick seeing in a wet race at say China, as the rain comes down all the wings on the cars start transforming into a high DF package within a couple of seconds.

[FoxHound]

That would be sick seeing in a wet race at say China, as the rain comes down all the wings on the cars start transforming into a high DF package within a couple of seconds.

Safer too!

[Manoah2u]

redbull flexiwings

anyway, yeah - but wouldn't it be concidered to be 'active aerodynamics' and thus rendered illegal? not to mention the
use of this 'material' is hard to be 'controlled' or 'regulated' if allowed?

Though I like the idea of these high-tech things on a technological level, i'm biased whether it would be a positive development for F1 - discussions about driver 'capacity' are already flaming, you introduce this technology and another
part of racing is essentially taken from the driver and done by 'a device' for them, essentially making it easier for them.

I like the idea for street use, i'm heavily biased for racing applications. Not that it wouldn't be cool, but because it's not what the sport needs.

[Lycoming]

As far as the stated applications above, it's a fancy but no less illegal way of doing something that has been technologically feasible for decades.

[rullewheel]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... -interview

I thought I knew a lot about 3D-printing, but F-that, when 4D printing enters a mature stage. Imagine this technology and grafen. Baam, we made time travelling possible.