Light speed. Words Glenn Butler Photography Simon Davidson

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1 Light speed In the search for perfect performance, weight is a fundamental factor. Which is why the Ferrari 488 Pista offers carbon fibre wheels that are significantly lighter than comparable alloy versions. We take a peek inside the high-tech factory of Carbon Revolution in Australia, whose production processes save precious kilos, and even grammes Words Glenn Butler Photography Simon Davidson The carbon fibre wheels of the Ferrari 488 Pista help to boost its acceleration, braking, and cornering performance 68 69

AUSTRALIA MELBOURNE ower and weight are the yin and yang of performance.

The Pista is 50hp more powerful than the 488 GTB, and it is 90kg lighter.

Reducing it from the extremities is even better. That s why carbon fibre is often used for body panels, and is one advantage of carbon ceramic brakes.

2 AUSTRALIA MELBOURNE ower and weight are the yin and yang of performance. The Ferrari 488 Pista, Maranello s fastest V8 road car ever, balances both power and weight to achieve the ultimate performance. The Pista is 50hp more powerful than the 488 GTB, and it is 90kg lighter. In this case, the weight reduction is just as significant as the power increase and equally important is from where that weight was removed. Reducing weight near the centre of mass is good. Reducing it from the extremities is even better. That s why carbon fibre is often used for body panels, and is one advantage of carbon ceramic brakes. The search for a carbon fibre wheel that is capable of withstanding the incredible forces generated by a 488 Pista was one that took Ferrari engineers literally to the ends of the Earth. The town of Geelong sits on a quiet bay one hour south of Melbourne, the southern-most metropolis on Australia s mainland. Just outside Geelong is Deakin University, and on a backlot of the university campus is Carbon Revolution, a business that grew out of a 2004 postgraduate project to build lightweight race cars. In 2007 Carbon Revolution evolved from a research and development project into a carbon fibre wheel producer. Just a few years later Carbon Revolution made a significant breakthrough; they figured out how to make a one-piece carbon fibre wheel rim and barrel, which reduced both production complexity and wheel weight. Today Carbon Revolution has 170 employees and is growing fast. It has also been named one of the key strategic partners for the Ferrari 488 Pista programme. No-one else has made one-piece carbon fibre wheels to OEM quality standards for multiple major global OEM vehicles, says Jake Dingle, Carbon Revolution s Chief Executive. This is a step change improvement in vehicle dynamics and greatly enhances vehicle performance. Carbon Revolution are eager to guide The Official Ferrari Magazine around their factory, but some areas are off limits, as the company s production methods are cutting-edge and the firm isn t keen on anyone discovering how it works. Our tour starts in a room similar to a garment factory. On one side is a huge cutting table with a large sheet of black carbon fibre laid out on top. A precision tool works tirelessly, carving hundreds of small shapes from the swathe of expensive aerospace material. The stencil for each piece is placed precisely No-one else has made one-piece carbon fibre wheels to OEM quality standards. This is a step change This page: a night-time view of Melbourne, the closest city to Carbon Revolution s Geelong headquarters, on Australia s southeastern coast; opposite page, top: quality control is carried out on each single carbon fibre wheel produced; opposite page, bottom: the carbon fibre gets inserted into the mould GETTY IMAGES 70 71

The company is not only developing new wheels. It s creating processes, production methods and materials by a computer in order to maximise the amount of carbon sheet used, minimising waste.

A second machine is sewing a star on a stencil, but instead of cotton, it s using a one-centimetre -wide tape of carbon fibre which is made up of 24,000 individual strands one-tenth the size of a

This Tailored Fibre Placement (TFP) machine is crafting a part of the wheel hub, an area where strength is particularly crucial, explains Ashley Denmead, an engineering graduate and one of the

3 The company is not only developing new wheels. It s creating processes, production methods and materials by a computer in order to maximise the amount of carbon sheet used, minimising waste. The three layers of the material are then weaved in such a way as to deliver optimal strength. A second machine is sewing a star on a stencil, but instead of cotton, it s using a one-centimetre -wide tape of carbon fibre which is made up of 24,000 individual strands one-tenth the size of a human hair. This Tailored Fibre Placement (TFP) machine is crafting a part of the wheel hub, an area where strength is particularly crucial, explains Ashley Denmead, an engineering graduate and one of the company s founders. The TFP is an enabler for us to get fibres exactly where we want them, and aligned in the right direction. Chief Executive Dingle says the TFP achieves reliability in one of the most important areas of wheel design. The bolted joint area is non-trivial. A wheel has to be attached to a vehicle that weighs anything between one and two tonnes. The wheel hub must handle hundreds of horsepower from the drivetrain. It has to deal with fatigue during a life of over 300,000 kilometres. It has to deal with external factors like impact from potholes. Inside the wheel sits a brake disc and callipers, which can reach temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, just a few centimetres from the wheel. So, the hub must not fail but bolting a fibre and polymer based composite component to a car is very challenging. This connection point takes the stresses from the road through the wheel into the car. This machine means we can place every fibre exactly where we need it, and in the direction we need it to go. The star sewn by the TFP and the jigsaw pieces now move into a dry-fibre layup process where each is hand-fitted into a huge wheel cast. It s time consuming and painstakingly slow. Carbon Revolution has plans to automate many of the production processes, but it must always weigh the investment in a new machine against its susceptibility to obsolescence. Product innovation in this factory goes hand in hand with production innovation, as Jake Dingle explains. The key to this business has been starting with a clean sheet [and] having people focused on nothing other than developing and building carbon fibre wheels. It means we re doing more than just developing new wheels, we re also developing new processes, new production methods, new materials. We are forging a pathway to the most efficient processes we can achieve. Carbon Revolution has produced carbon fibre wheels for other original equipment manufacturers, but those for Ferrari are the first with onepiece barrels. This innovation reduced weight by a further one kilogramme per wheel incredible when you think that carbon fibre wheels are already around 40 percent lighter than the Above, and opposite: some glimpses of Carbon Revolution s production methods and machinery, including the dry-cutting area, which resembles a garment production factory. Here highly-skilled workers use precision cutting tools to carve out swatches of carbon fibre material which will later be shaped into parts of the carbon wheels 72 73

The carbon wheels of the 488 Pista have a transparent finishing, which leaves the advanced aerospace material on display and doesn t add to the car s

4 The carbon wheels of the 488 Pista have a transparent finishing, which leaves the advanced aerospace material on display and doesn t add to the car s overall weight The key to this business has been starting with a clean sheet and having people who do nothing else but develop and build carbon fibre wheels 74 75

Lighter wheels means less weight at the car s extremities... That in turn means the car can accelerate harder, turn-in sharper and corner at higher speeds standard wheels mounted on the Ferrari 488 GTB.

From there the carbon fibre wheel moves to the injection and moulding stage where resin is injected into the mould under pressure and left to set.

5 Lighter wheels means less weight at the car s extremities... That in turn means the car can accelerate harder, turn-in sharper and corner at higher speeds standard wheels mounted on the Ferrari 488 GTB. This step change to one-piece barrel fabrication not only delivers benefits to the end user, says Dingle, it enables us to automate the process far more than it was before. From there the carbon fibre wheel moves to the injection and moulding stage where resin is injected into the mould under pressure and left to set. This is the current production bottleneck, and a part of the reason it takes two weeks for each wheel to be completed. Again, Carbon Revolution has plans to make this more efficient. Once the wheel is freed from the mould, it is x-rayed in three dimensions and the resulting scan inspected by a quality control operator. Carbon Revolution quality control inspects every single wheel. If a defect is found, the wheel is rejected. From there it s into the paint shop where a clear finishing coat is applied. The company can also paint carbon fibre wheels another global competitive advantage but Ferrari prefers to leave the wheel s advanced aerospace material on show. Plus, paint adds weight, and when you re counting every gramme, weight for vanity s sake is to be avoided. From there the wheels are packaged and shipped to Maranello for fitting to the Ferrari 488 Pista, realising minimal weight for maximum performance. Lighter wheels means lightening the extremities, thus reducing the forces of inertia and rotating mass for the drivetrain to deal with. That means the car can accelerate harder, turn-in sharper, corner at higher speeds and brake more effectively. Greater all-round performance means greater driver enjoyment. Carbon Revolution can paint the wheels in any colour, but even paint adds weight, which, in the case of the 488 Pista, defeats one of the purposes of having carbon wheels in the first place: to reduce excess grammes 76 77

PRODUCT BROCHURE TRULY THE LIGHTEST AND STRONGEST CARBON FIBER WHEELS

PRODUCT BROCHURE TRULY THE LIGHTEST AND STRONGEST CARBON FIBER WHEELS TRULY THE LIGHTEST AND STRONGEST CARBON FIBER WHEELS THERE S NO BETTER PROVING GROUND THAN RACETRACKS! Yamaha Austria Racing Team Official ROTOBOX Testing Team ABOUT THE ROTOBOX WHEEL The Rotobox Carbon