CARBON: A FIBRE WHOSE TIME HAS COME 

***********************************

They are now building stronger, lighter high-rise towers, using less reinforced steel, along with carbon fibre -- a product that could replace cancer-causing asbestos.

First to gamble on incorporating carbon-fibre into reinforced cement were the architects and builders of the 150-foot-high onionshaped domes of the Saddam Qadassiya Martyrs monument built in Baghdad in 1983. The showcase 37-storey Ark Hills office tower in Tokyo is the latest display of the advantages of this unique material.

Discovered and patented by Thomas Edison for use in incandescent electric lamp filaments, carbon fibre was again patented 80 years later by Union Carbide for use as a reinforcing material. In 1963, Dr. Sugio Otani of Gunma University (northwest of Tokyo) turned on to it as a result of one of his other searches.

Carbon which can be spun into a fibre is the result of heating a pulp-waste product called lignin (abundant in British Columbia and across Canada). Dr. Otani patented a process for commercial-scale plants transforming pitch into carbon fibre. Most promising new applications for fibre involve use in reinforcing cement. Kajima, the giant Japanese constuction company, working with Otani have created a cement mixture using only three percent chopped fibre. It is claimed that building walls with this material are stronger by a factor of three to four and are up to 60 percent lighter than anything constructed with traditional cement.

The Ark Hills office complex has 170 tons of carbon fibre incorporated into exterior curtain walls. Despite costs three times higher than ordinary cement, the new mixture nets out cheaper because it uses 20 percent fewer steel reinforcing rods and being much lighter does not require heavy, expensive cranes to swing the panels into place.

As land becomes so expensive in Japan, many new buildings are being erected on reclaimed land. This land is usually softer, so lighter-weight buildings reduce the chance of subsidence. Ten more buildings incorporating carbon fibre have been commenced in Japan since the Ark Hills project was designed.

Although other uses for carbon fibre have been discovered, the big market would be as an asbestos replacement. In this regard production costs must be dramatically lowered. And, Dr. Otani is working on this at the moment. The Japanese government is restricting the sale of asbestos for health reasons (in the process putting 80,000 workers in 400 factories out of jobs). No equivalent action has been taken by Canada, which, to its shame is still pushing asbestos sales in Third World countries.

Watch carbon fibre turn up in many new products and materials. More information: Dr. Sugio Otani, Gunma University, 4-2 Aramaki, Machi, Maebashi, Japan.

Phone: 0272/32-1611.

* * *

< previous | chapter index | next >
back to Main Chapter Listing
back to Home Page