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Wooden structure reinforced with carbon fibre

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AncientAviation

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2020
Messages
91
Location
England
Greetings all... I'm building a Mitchell wing B10 which is a wooden structure. I know one builder reported issues with the trailing edge of the wing as the fabric caused it to bow. He had to place additional wooden support from the rib to the centre point of the TE to prevent this happening.

I recently spoke to an old time B10 hang glider pilot that said he put a 1" carbon fibre strip over the TE, the rib upper and lower surfaces and over the plywood nose section but just above and below the spar and basically where the ribs attached. He said for very little weight it added a lot of strength. The hang glider version was very, very light.

I have tried to read up on how composites are added to/used with wood - but haven't come across much. I wonder about expansion with temperature, surface preparation and assume just a standard wet layup (no vacuum bagging)?

I think some of Jim Maske's Graphlite on the TE would be a good plan - although see in a thread here there are supply issues. I'm UK based so the Netherlands supplier (DPP | Carbon and glass-fibre profiles | Applications | Aerospace) I could use if need be...

I half considered if going to reinforce the TE as above, doing a similar thing with the spars? If I'm doing the TE anyway this might be easy enought to do although they are probably fine as designed and a waste of time and money...

Just before waste time and money thought I'd see if the gods on here could comment on this...

Pictures are of end product and give you an idea of the TE situation :)
 

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