Carbon Fiber Strings

In the Manufacturing Engineering Technology Lab, isolated from the rest of the exhibits in the Golisano Building, students stand next to deceivingly ordinary, everyday objects; a banjo, turbine blades, and a bicycle frame and wheel. These are not ordinary objects, however. These are student-developed composite pieces. Each of the objects have been partially made with another substance, such as carbon fiber, that cause it to weigh substantially less than its real counterpart.

Jonathan Memole was part of the team that developed the composite banjo. The team used carbon fiber to recreate part of the instrument. "Making [the banjo] out of the carbon fiber made it lighter," Memole explained, the composite banjo weighs 1/3 the weight of a traditional banjo.

Carbon fiber is a material that consists of extremely thin fibers. The carbon atoms are bonded together in microscopic crystals. This alignment makes the fiber incredibly strong. Carbon fibers can be used to create different patterns and can be combined with various resins and molded to create composite materials that have a high strength-to-weight ratio. This makes carbon fiber very desirable in aerospace, civil engineering, motor sports, and other sports such as cycling.

Memole described the long process of creating the composite banjo. He and his team created a mold for part of the drum of the banjo, as well as for the neck. They used the majority of the drum from a traditional banjo, and then used an epoxy resin, a combination of a resin and a hardener, combined with carbon fibers to cast the molds of the neck and drum in a composite material. And, yes, the composite banjo does play!