Toray, Specialty Materials strengthen partnership for next-gen aerospace applications

Toray Advanced Composites (TAC, Morgan Hill, Calif., U.S.) has strengthened its commercial partnership with Specialty Materials (Lowell, Mass., U.S.). The joint collaboration will reportedly improve the supply chain by uniting Specialty’s boron fiber with Toray Composite Materials America’s (Tacoma, Wash., U.S.) domestically produced, high-strength intermediate modulus (IM) carbon fibers T1100G and a variety of TAC’s resin systems including toughened epoxies, cyanate esters, bismaleimides (BMIs), and polyimides for the Specialty Materials’ Gen 2 Hy-Bor product family.

The next-generation product family is a high-performance hybrid prepreg tailored to enhance the structural efficiency of composite structures such as spars, longerons, rotors and control surfaces for aerospace applications by tuning compression and stiffness properties. “Our relationship with Toray Advanced Composites has enabled this unique prepreg portfolio which provides engineering teams new options for optimizing performance of composite structures,” Monica Rommel, CEO of Specialty Materials, says.

According to the partners, this commercial partnership enables engineers to easily control and manage key variables for novel solution innovations with domestically produced, high-quality products within the U.S. supply chain.

“Toray Advanced Composites partnership with Specialty Materials leverages both companies’ technologies to tailor a solution to the most demanding applications,” Joe Morris, director of DOD programs from TAC, adds.