- Rapid curing increases productivity
- Formability at low pressure of 0.5Mpa
- Application: automotive, aerospace
Toho Tenax Co., Ltd., the core company of the Teijin Group’s carbon fibers and composites business, announced that it has developed a new prepreg that faetures rapid curing for increased productivity and features very good surface texture and formability.
3 min at 150°C allows production capacity of 50,000 CFRP sets
The new prepreg cures in three minutes at 150°C and minimizes resin being expelled from the prepreg due to molding pressure. The result is a significant increase in production efficiency, which will allow the company to raise annual production capacity to 50,000 carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) sets.
Toho Tenax has developed its new prepreg initially for automotive applications, but will also target aerospace and other applications. Possible new fields include sports and general industry due 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 are intermediate materials of thermoset CFRPs used mainly for aircraft and automotive applications. They generally are molded by a curing process with pressure equipment called an autoclave. Prepregs are layered in the mold, covered by baggings, vacuumed and then pressurized at high temperature. Autoclaved CFRPs have high strength, but they require a long manufacturing cycle time leading to high production costs.
