For a student research assignment/project myself and a team are tasked with creating a railway vehicle that must brake (mechanically) at high speeds. Our brake housing is to be made from carbon fiber and the brakes are to be attached to this housing, while facing inward to the rail which they will act upon. What methods can be used when joining mechanical metal parts to carbon fiber?
There are several methods available, bolting, clinching, riveting, adhesive bonding or heat conduction joining. All have their advantages and disadvantages.
clamps are ok (less strength degradation compared to bolt&nut systems). You should always have a torque control while tightening clamps though - because CFRP tends to fail badly if over-compressed. Also, clamp heads must be of maximal possible diameter. Finally, braking force direction should tighten clamp or be neutral (true for clamps of metal-on-metal type too).
Another alternative is epoxy glue in pre-fabricated insertion slots.
There are several methods available, bolting, clinching, riveting, adhesive bonding or heat conduction joining. All have their advantages and disadvantages.
You may find a manufacturer that can mold the mechanical metal part inside of the carbon fiber housing (i.e., the metal embed in between composite carbon layers). You can also drill hole and tap thread in where the metal part is embedded, then bolting and nutting. However, this method is hard to make modification about the design.
There are resins which can be used to bond metal and fibers. The load acting on it is critical. Depending on the load appropriate resin can be selected that has suitable bonding strength.
The optimal way would be designing the piece with the holes already made in case of wanting to use bolts. I would not recomend drilling a hole because the fiber loses its cointinuity however another good way is looking for a resin such as epoxy that is really good for this tipe of work and you avoid having week spots such as holes were the piece can break.
You may use adhesive such as Hysol EA 9394.
https://tds.us.henkel.com/NA/UT/HNAUTTDS.nsf/web/D61948C932B43DF38525715C001BD400/$File/Hysol_EA_9394-EN.pdf
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