Apple could trade aluminum for carbon fiber body in iPad 2 - rumor - Page 2

I was referring to the comments about using Liquid Metal, although either way I did say it was my impression, and wasn't trying to report opinion as fact

In fact it is. Carbon bicycle frames for example are hardly lighter than aluminum ones.
(lighter means ofcourse the construction not the mass of a specific volume of the material).
It is also much cheaper in production and even as raw material (the carbon sheets are expensive to produce etc.).

But you have to read my statement again, I compared liquid metal to aluminium not carbon So your wrong. Read before you respond.

J.

Good idea Scotty!

Not a snowball's chance in hell. Apple would take all of the credentials they have built over the last few years with recyclable materials (every keynote touts the ALUMINUM and GLASS on all of these products) and (no pun intended) throw them in the trash.....

On the other hand, your CF iPad would survive re-entry from earth orbit if you dropped it while on a space walk from the ISS.

umm.....you are thinking individual carbon fibers....and only along the fiber axis. In the transverse direction CF composites have a thermal conductivity of about 15 W/mK vs copper (which is isotropic) at around 400 W/mK. Aluminum is pretty good at 250 W/mK which is one of the reasons (besides corrosion resistance) that it is used for many types of cookware, skillets, pots, etc.

As far as liquid metal goes, it would be lighter than aluminum...in the qunatity you would likely need to use (you could use a thinner section of LM to get the same flexural strength). Also the injection molding potential would be a huge savings compared to the NC machining of the aluminum billet. Of course I have to think the liquid metal itself would cost more than triple what aluminum does, but I guess that is ok if you only use a third as much. It would be a huge jump, and I the MASSIVE changes needed to the production process would have leaked long before now.

Its a shame. I would love a liquid metal iPhone or iPad. Materials are cool...but I might be biased, I am a Materials engineer

"Apple could mold a supportive spine to a carbon fiber skin for a unique implementation of the material, in order to address issues where carbon fiber can crack or break if bent or rolled in a certain way."

Really?

Carbon Fibre is little more than a resin impregnated cloth matrix, so there are no concerns with regard to 'cracking' or 'breaking' if 'bent or rolled' during the manufacturing process.

I've been working with the composite material since the late 1980's and this kind of thing simply isn't an issue.

First, it is hard as hell to get carbon fibers aligned and tensioned in a way that makes it better than metals. Apple's patent hints at a solution, but it's still not easy. Second, a carbon fiber shell will absorb RF signals unless it's clad in metal foil (to reflect RF). Substituting aramid for carbon would solve the RF problem but also make the case flexible. Third, fiber composites don't handle repeated high impacts well. The shell would have to be bulked-up so that accidental drops and bumps never dent it. These are lots of good arguments for using metal in a small device.

It is definitely damaged when forced into the tight corners that a handheld device would need. Aim a very bright beam of light over the cloth then make a sharp bend in it. You'll see shimmering from broken fibers shooting into the air.

1) Compared to CF, LM may not be lighter, but what about compared to aluminum?

2) And, 'cheapness' is a function of manufacturing scale?

I'm old school. I love the metallic feel of aluminum. It reeks of quality and durability and looks fantastic. No smudges, no scratches. It just looks refined.

Carbon Fiber might be better, but to most, it will look like a cost cutting measure. It will look and feel like plastic.

The benefits would have to be quite overwhelming before I switched.

On top of all that, we wouldn't get to hear Bertrand Serlet and J. Ive say aluminum during keynotes.

Agreed. Goes against Apple's recycling efforts.

That's why no one would ever make a tennis racket or golf club out of carbon fiber.


Entirely possible, although I suspect it's still a little ways down the road.


There are Thunderbolt hard drives. If one can have a Thunderbolt hard drive, there's no reason why the iPad couldn't have a Thunderbolt interface. The iPad is, and probably always will be, aan endpoint device. It's not intended as a host.


That's a silly statement. Heavier than carbon fiber on a unit volume basis? Sure. but one presumably needs considerably less liquid metal, so the total weight could be lower (I haven't worked it out). In any event, simply saying that it must be heavier because it's a metal misses the point entirely.


I would suggest that you get educated before blathering about things you don't understand.
http://www.liquidmetal.com/applicati...p.sporting.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidmetal

Seems to me that skis, tennis rackets, and softball bats are larger than a 'tiny cog or gear'.

The cost of a typical Liquidmetal alloy is around $15 per pound vs about $1 per pound for Al. I don't know the weight of the aluminum case in the iPad, but let's say it's 1/4 pound. So you're looking at $3.75 for liquid metal vs $0.25 for aluminum. But that assumes that you need as much liquidmetal - which is probably not the case. Liquidmetal is twice as strong as titanium, so you can undoubtedly get away with 1/4 as much - saving a few ounces of weight and bringing the cost difference down to an insignificant $1 vs $0.25. Of course, when you figure in the cost of processing (milling aluminum is far more expensive than stamping liquidmetal, the liquidmetal might be even cheaper.



You're looking at that backwards. Why would Apple spend $10 M on the technology if they didn't see some value to it?

I don't expect to see a liquid metal case any time soon, but one has to assume that Apple has SOME plans for it since they spent $10 M.

While I'm not expecting the MBP to follow the AIRs 100% I was expecting a little more in the way of an update. In this case it looks like Apple was playing it safe using an established platform to introduce new tech. In a way it makes sense as SB and TB have to be delivered in a reliable manner.

As to the rumors well some I thought where a bit out of line. For example a 8 or 16 GB SSD for boot didn't make sense at all to me. Rather I saw a possibility there where the RAM image might be stored there for "instant on".

The biggest shock though is the total lack of Blade SSD storage slots. To me that was a no brainer. Again it could have been the desire to reduce risk.

In any event I now have this fear that a major overhaul will come in six months. Sort of like what happened in 2008. As to the case there are many options open to Apple they could go to an advanced resin for the case, possibly something like Ultem and reinforce it with carbon. I actually doubt the case would be that much lighter though. It would be tough as that is one amazing resin. However Apple seems to have Aluminum down pat and it sells well being green - even if that is debatable. One possibility that I seldom see mentioned is the use of sheet molding compound like the auto industry has played with. Given iPads planer design this might be a viable approach for a consumer device, for a laptop it might be fine for parts of the machine.

You mean 'aluminium.'

I was just going to write that one Scotty.

You don't want to be the only Apple blog that isn't regurgitating it! How would that look? Like you're not on top of the rumor mills. Look, it's the rumor game. Quantity, not quality.