Toray Industries, Inc., (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as "Toray") today announced that it has developed new carbon fibers that realized both higher tensile strength and tensile modulus named TORAYCA® MX series and would expand its lineup going forward. The company will also introduce prepreg (high-performance resin-impregnated fabric) using the MX series carbon fiber to contribute to variety of the 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 350GPa or higher are called high tensile modulus carbon fibers, and raising the fiber tensile strength while maintaining tensile modulus is technically difficult and this has been a major challenge.
Toray has introduced high tensile modulus carbon fiber TORAYCA® MJ series and the products have been adopted for applications requiring high tensile modulus such as aerospace, industry and sports. Further, Toray launched T1100G fiber in 2014 with the world’s highest tensile strength (*tensile strength: 7GPa, tensile modulus: 320GPa), continuing to expand the potential of carbon fibers into high-end sporting goods and structural parts in the aerospace field.
In the newly introduced 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.
At the same time, Toray will introduce prepreg with 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 compared with conventional products. It could contribute to weight reduction of composite parts, as it allows ideal stiffness design while retaining strength.
Toray will enhance the product lineup in the series in response to the market needs and expand the products’ application to those requiring high tensile strength and compression strength.
In the medium-term management program “Project AP-G 2019,” Toray positions the carbon fiber composite materials business as a strategically expanding business and plans to proactively invest management resources to expand the business. The company will continue to work on development of new products through further improvement in the performance of carbon fiber TORAYCA® and TORAYCA® prepreg and also their processability in a bid to bring about innovation in the society with the power of materials.
