Toho Tenax, the core company of the Teijin Group’s carbon fibres and composites business, has developed a new prepreg, or carbon fibre sheet pre-impregnated with matrix resin, that is said to achieve rapid curing for increased productivity and feature excellent surface texture and formability.

The new prepreg cures in three minutes at 150 degree and minimises resin being expelled from the prepreg due to moulding pressure, the company reports.

The result is an increase in production efficiency by a factor of many dozens, which will allow the company to raise annual production capacity to 50,000 carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) sets.

Automotive applications

Toho Tenax has developed its new prepreg initially for automotive applications, but will explore opportunities for aircraft and other fields to further expand its carbon fibres and composites business.

Possible new fields include sports and general industry fields thanks to formability at low pressure of around 0.5Mpa. A flame resistant feature now under development is expected to further expand applications to consumer electronics, vehicles and other general applications.

Prepregs

Prepregs are intermediate materials of thermoset CFRPs used mainly for aircraft and automotive applications.

They generally are moulded by a curing process with pressure equipment called an autoclave. Prepregs are layered in the mould, covered by baggings, vacuumed and then pressurized at high temperature.

Autoclaved CFRPs have high strength, but they require a long manufacturing cycle time and incur high production costs.

Teijin Group

Teijin is a technology driven group offering advanced solutions in the areas of sustainable transportation, information and electronics, safety and protection, environment and energy, and healthcare.

Its main fields of operation are high-performance fibres such as aramid, carbon fibres and composites, healthcare, films, resin and plastic processing, polyester fibres, products converting and IT. The group has some 150 companies and around 16,000 employees spread out over 20 countries worldwide.

www.teijin.com