What Are Carbon Fiber & Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics?

Product Forms

As carbon fiber is in the form of fibers, it is rarely used in final products without modification. In general, carbon fiber undergoes some processing to make an intermediate material, which is then molded to make a molded product for use as the final product. These two steps constitute the processing. (There is also a process in which carbon fiber is directly impregnated with resin or another material by a molding method such as filament-winding, without the involvement of intermediate materials, and is then processed to make molded products.)

Carbon-fiber-related products come in various forms, from tow, through intermediate materials, to molded products.
The Mitsubishi Chemical Group handles the following carbon-fiber-related products.

Carbon Fiber

Carbon fiber tow

Carbon fiber tow consists of an untwisted bundle of fine filaments (single yarn) with diameters of 5 to 15 μｍ. A fine bundle of 1,000 to 30,000 filaments is termed a small tow, whereas a thick bundle of 48,000 or more is generally called a large tow.

Intermediate Material

Carbon fiber intermediates are materials manufactured from carbon fiber tow and can be broadly classified as follows:
(1) Intermediate materials made solely from carbon fiber, such as carbon fiber fabric (woven carbon fiber) and carbon fiber chop (cut carbon fiber).
(2) Intermediate materials, carbon fiber reinforced plastics, are produced by combining carbon fiber and resin. One example is prepreg, made by impregnating matrix resin (e.g. epoxy, PEEK resin) into carbon fiber. These carbon fiber intermediates have been developed to suit a variety of applications and molding methods.

Molded Products

These are products using carbon fiber or intermediate materials to make a defined shape. For example, golf shafts and other pipe shapes are formed by sheet-wrap molding using prepreg. We select the most suitable intermediate material and molding method for the shape and physical properties required for the final application and use them to make the molded product.

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