Toray CFRP prepreg for aerospace demonstrates flame retardance, mechanical performance

Toray Industries Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) has developed a carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) prepreg for advanced aerospace applications. The company says it leveraged materials informatics technology — a technique that combines machine learning, theoretical density, simulations and databases — to swiftly achieve optimal high flame retardance and mechanical performance for this material. The company will push forward with demonstration testing to broaden CFRP applications and demand to encompass aircraft, automobiles and general industrial usage. 

According to Toray, although mechanically superior to metals, CFRP does have some functional drawbacks, including flame retardance and electrical conductivity; as a result, improving these properties is considered desirable. Nevertheless, challenges engineering and optimizing different flame retardancy and mechanical properties entails a large amount of experimental data. It has also been difficult to slash development lead times, Toray adds.

As a part of its digital transformation initiatives, which draw on data and digital technologies to become more competitive, Toray deployed materials informatics in CFRP engineering and established a technology to develop materials swiftly by harnessing inverse problem analysis to refine materials designs based on the properties required. 

The company used a self-organizing map deployed in joint research with Tohoku University as a tool for this analysis, enabling it to identify suitable material combinations to achieve the desired properties via experiments. This led to the successful engineering of a matrix resin for the fiber reinforcement to develop the CFRP prepreg. 

The prepreg is said to provide the equivalent compressive strength, heat resistance and other mechanical properties as current aerospace materials. At the same time, it delivers a 35% lower heat release rate, which is the rate of heat generated from fire, compared to those materials. In addition, Toray plans to apply inverse problem analysis to thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and other elements to help engineer highly functional prepreg that diversifying needs in aircraft, automobile and general industrial usage components.

Some of Toray’s progress in this development effort was part of “Materials Integration” for Revolutionary Design System of Structural Materials under the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP). SIP is led by the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) of the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, which the Japan Science and Technology Agency oversees.