In today's day and age, with so much emphasis on weight reduction on concrete pumps, carbon fibre will surely be a topic of discussion in the future. Simply, how can future engineers ignore carbon fibre as a structural material? Supposebly 10 times stronger and 3 times lighter than steel of its same thickness.

It is everywhere.... cars, motorbikes, structural equipment etc. zoomlion have been pioneering carbon fibre 5th and 6th stage booms recently. Even some boom cylinders are made of carbon fibre these days.

This brings an interesting topic of discussion, regarding strength, maintenance and off course DURABILITY. More notably how does carbon fibre stand up to the basic elements of earth - water and sunlight?

Some interesting information i have founded from an experiment in regards to tests on carbon fibre material:

"It was observed that only 1000 h of cyclic exposure to both UV radiation and condensation resulted in a 29%decrease in the transverse tensile strength of the material. The transverse modulus was also reduced, but not as severely as the transverse strength. The longitudinal fiber-dominated properties were not affected for the exposure durations employed in this investigation.

However, it can be expected that over long periods of environmental exposure, the synergism between UV and condensation will cause so much damage that load transferbetween fibers will longer possible owing to matrix erosion. This would then lead to deterioration of even fiber-dominated properties such as EL and FutL, and could even result in catastrophic structural failure."

For those interested in the experiment: http://me.eng.sunysb.edu/~compmech/downloads/N29.pdf

Concrete Pumping industry already has a Carbon Fiber Boom pump. CIFA had one at the 2010 Bauma  in Munich and they are for sale today. 

CIFA presented in BAUMA Munich 2010 the longest concrete distribution boom mounted on 4 axles truck within 32 ton, which is the legal limit in most EU countries. The achievement is possible thanks to the use of a special carbon fiber for the last two sections of the boom instead of the usual steel. It's the first time this material has been used in a construction equipment. Visit www.CIFA.com form more info.

Check out the video.

http://concretepumpingvideos.com/videos/1037/cifa-carbon-fiber-concrete-pump

I see the boom inspectors saying " you break you replace" ,