ABSTRACT
About thirty years ago, carbon fiber was heralded as the new wonder material. However, carbon fiber was certainly not new, although it has since proved to be an extremely useful reinforcement material. Thomas Alva Edison, who made his first sound recordings in 1877, turned his attentions to the incandescent electric lamp and in 1880, patented the use of carbon fiber as filament material for his electric lamp [1]. To achieve this aim, in a period of some 15 months, Edison and his associates in the laboratory (Figure 3.1) at Menle Park, New Jersey, USA built a new type of generator, found a suitable element material and incorporated it in a glass globe operating under a high vacuum [2-4].
