Select to expand quoteRob11 said... ka43 said...
Talk to windsurfers about carbon masts, it happens. A knock, dropped, not enough wetting out, bad batch, bad luck etc etc.
Thousands of masts out there, percentage is low. Paddles are the same.
+1
As for failure due to cyclic fatigue of carbon/composite material, I say this is rubbish. Carbon fibre has infinite life as opposed to Aluminium. Alu paddles will fail with certainty after a while (alu windsurfing booms keep breaking partly due to fatigue). Carbon fibre used in airplanes and bikes for that same reason and more.
IMO, most failures are due to:
- poor quality control (if any in some factories 
, always conflict of interest for a factory doing its own quality control)
- a knock, dropped etc (very much doubt wearing a ring or two would do anything to the paddle)
Interesting video below (Trek bikes, back when they were made in he US...):
very interesting - thxs for posting
To say carbon fibre has a infinite fatigue life is rubish. Yes it may have a much higher FL than aluminium, but its more to do with the ability it has to be easily used in complex design.
While not impossible, can you imagin what it would take to make a bike frame the same design and varrying thickness as the TREK one in alu?
I personally dont think fatigue life is the problem with paddles failing. Id say it is a combination of things and alot of breakages could have similarites, but would not be the same.
The point I was making about fatigue life is once you compromise the structure, it is reduced.
More often than not, the reason why a composite product breaks is because the resin fails and not the fibre. You compromise the resin, the fibre gets compromised almost immediately. Nicks, scratches, scuffs all compromise the resin as does continual flexing of the resin. Epoxies are superior over Ester based resins because they're tougher. They can take more punishment before failure. Sometimes this toughness is traded for weight savings by using less resin in a laminate, just as less carbon fibre can be used for a given strength over fibreglass.
Select to expand quotehusq2100 said...
To say carbon fibre has a infinite fatigue life is rubish. Yes it may have a much higher FL than aluminium, but its more to do with the ability it has to be easily used in complex design.
While not impossible, can you imagin what it would take to make a bike frame the same design and varrying thickness as the TREK one in alu?
I personally dont think fatigue life is the problem with paddles failing. Id say it is a combination of things and alot of breakages could have similarites, but would not be the same.
The point I was making about fatigue life is once you compromise the structure, it is reduced.
+1
Select to expand quoteTowny said...
Yeah all paddles break, some just seem to break a bit more often thats all.
Maybe they sell a hell of a lot of these really good paddles and then the odds are you will see a few break!!!!
