Hybrid prepreg maximizes performance of carbon fiber structures

Specialty Materials (Lowell, Mass., U.S.) is a supplier of high-quality boron and silicon carbide fiber products, advanced composite materials and high-purity boron nanopowder. The company is a certified, woman-owned small business and won the 2020 National Subcontractor of the Year award from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Specialty Materials will feature enhancements to its Hy-Bor portfolio of prepregs containing boron and carbon fibers. Hy-Bor is used as selective reinforcement in carbon fiber composite structures to decrease weight and increase compression performance for aerospace, space, sporting goods and other applications requiring high-performance materials.

The company’s most recent additions to the Hy-Bor portfolio pair monofilament boron fiber with Toray (Tokyo, Japan) Torayca T800 and T1100 intermediate modulus (IM) carbon fibers and state-of-the-art Toray toughened epoxy, cyanate ester, bismaleimide and polyimide resin systems for terrestrial and celestial applications. Specific properties are highly tunable, including boron fiber areal density, for targeted utilization of composites that can feature greater than 475 ksi compression strength and 32 msi modulus.

Hy-Bor provides favorable dampening properties and impact strength, increased stiffness and high compression strength for improvement in ultra lightweight composites (golf clubs, hockey sticks and club heads). For example, Hy-Bor’s distinctive properties recently enabled the sports equipment company, Bauer Hockey (Exeter, N.H., U.S.) to launch its lightweight AG5NT hockey stick.

In aerospace, boron fiber is said to significantly improve open hole compression strength, bearing strength and compression-after-impact strength for wing spars, ailerons, longerons and more.

For space and fission/fusion applications, the monofilament boron fiber with a tungsten core in composites provides high stiffness with coefficient of thermal expansion tunability while providing neutron reflection and adsorption capability. Application examples include telescopes, optical benches kinematic mounts and structural shielding.

In addition to boron fiber, Specialty Materials offers a series of silicon carbide monofilament fibers for metal and ceramic matrix composite applications that are manufactured in the U.S.