Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

Toray Industries, Inc. has developed new carbon fibers that achieve both higher tensile strength and tensile modulus named Torayca MX series, and will expand its lineup going forward.

The company will also introduce prepregs (high-performance resin-impregnated fabrics) using the MX series carbon fibers for a variety of applications.

The fiber tensile strength of carbon fibers has a trade-off relationship with its tensile modulus. There has been strong demand from the market to realize both higher tensile strength and tensile modulus in carbon fibers, as it means maintaining equivalent performance of materials even when the amount of carbon fiber is reduced, which would result in making composite parts lighter. In general, carbon fibers with tensile modulus of 350 GPa or higher are called high tensile modulus carbon fibers. Raising the fiber tensile strength while maintaining tensile modulus is technically difficult, and this has been a major challenge.

Toray earlier introduced the Torayca MJ series of high tensile modulus carbon fibers, and products have been developed for applications requiring high tensile modulus, such as aerospace, industry and sports. In 2014, Toray launched T1100G fiber with the world’s highest tensile strength (tensile strength: 7 GPa and tensile modulus: 320 GPa), continuing to expand the potential of carbon fibers into high-end sporting goods and structural parts in the aerospace field.

In the development of the Torayca MX series, Toray further pursued both fiber strength and tensile modulus, which are in a trade-off relationship, to the utmost limit and applied technology to improve the orientation by closely controlling the graphite crystal structure in a nano order. It succeeded in improving the tensile strength of M40X, the first variety of Torayca MX series, by about 30% while retaining the equivalent tensile modulus to conventional carbon fibers.

Toray will introduce prepregs with the Torayca MX series carbon fibers. The tensile strength, compressive strength and shock resistance of Torayca MX series prepreg, for which Toray’s proprietary nano technology Nanoalloy technology has been used in the matrix resin, have been significantly improved as compared with conventional products. It could contribute to weight reduction of composite parts, as it allows ideal stiffness design while retaining strength.

Toray will expand the product lineup in the series in response to market needs, as well as applications to those requiring high tensile strength and compression strength.

By daisen