Carbon fiber has a different failure modes than steel or Al. But they both can fail. I've built and broken stuff made of both......
Carbon fiber can resist tremendous loads, but it doesn't bend or neck down like metal when loaded to failure. It fails dramatically, typically by shattering. Imagine if the bike frame was made of steel, and large angle bends were in the spots where the CF is split. Would it be any less useless than the three pieces in the photo? Maybe it doesn't look as dramatic, but in my mind, broke is broke.
The nice thing about CF is that you can quickly increase the load capacity of a component by simply increasing the thickness of the existing CF section. Think about how hard it would be to increase the wall thickness of a 1" diameter, 2 foot long steel tube by .010" . With CF, you need only abrade the existing tube to ensure adhesion, and then wrap it with 1-2 layers of 3K CF fabric. Need even more strength? Wrap it with 6K, 12K, you get the idea.
If the frame you are talking about has Al. dropouts, that would be the more probable failure point. The torque would likely open up the slot.....
CF is some tough stuff. But people can break anything.......
TTFN,
Dennis
