Apple Details How It Would Use Carbon Fibre to Strengthen Its Devices

The Bendgate saga as it was dubbed has made Apple look at the design of the phone and have released a new patent detailing how the company plans to make an even stronger phone with the use of carbon fibre.

The Patent from Apple titled “Encapsulation of a Stiffener Layer in Aluminium” describes how the company could reinforce future versions of its iPhone while making the phone even thinner. In the patent Apple suggests first embedding a stiff material such as carbon fibre or carbon fibre reinforced plastic on the inside of the device housing and then subsequently covered by depositing a layer of aluminium over the carbon fibre in a solid-state deposition process.

In addition to the carbon fibre, Apple also propose reducing the weight of the phone by etching a pattern of triangular or circular indentations into the aluminium. These patterns, when combined with the carbon fibre would make the device lighter whilst still keeping the structural integrity of the housing.

Although this new application is mainly focused on strengthening the iPhone, Apple could employ this process to make its range of iDevices and personal computers both lighter and stronger. Over the past few years Apple has been granted a number of different patents using composite materials,  from a new carbon fibre moulding process to exploring new transparent fibre composite Materials.