Regardless, if you look to car manufactures, one can come to their own conclusions. When building a high performance car, manufactures pick and choose materials based on a number of factors including cost and strength. Lotus Engineering decided while designing the body structure of the Lotus Elise sports car that bonded aluminum would provide stiffness and cost savings that could not be matched by Carbon composites. GM while building the latest Corvette ZO6 decided that a mix of balsa wood, carbon fiber, and aluminum would do the trick. While Ferrari decided to go with Carbon Kevlar for their 400K+ Enzo.
Now back to carbon composites. There are basically two methods "Wet" and "pre-impregnated" Pre-impregnated is the better method as it creates a stronger material with less mass. It is also expensive and requires a special equipment called an autoclave to cook the material under pressure. The "Wet" method is simple and can be done in your garage by someone with experience working with Fiberglass. So basically, Pre-impregnated would be the way to go if you are looking to make light and strong fiber composites. But will it be a better material then aluminum? Keep in mind that fiber composites break down over time when exposed to the elements. This takes us to our next factor to consider which has to do with heat dissipation. Too much heat, and the resin in the fiber may start to break down.
MacNN recently reported that Apple recently filed a patent on cooling technologies which describe an aluminum plate behind the display connected to a liquid cooling system that would dissipate heat. Maybe this is how the heat will be drawn alway from the fiber. Hey if so, you heard it here first.
So what will the next Macbook Air be made of? My guess... Balsa wood.
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