Carbon fiber material for auto body

Tokyo University successfully developed a carbon fiber material for auto body jointly with Toray, Toyobo, and Mitsubishi Rayon. The newly-developed material has 10 times as much strength as iron and weighs one fourth of iron. It can be moulded in a short time, and it allows for deformation and agglutination. It can be applied to various part of a car including auto body and engine parts. The university will collaborate with Toyota, Nissan, and Honda to establish the mass production technology of this material. To develop this material, the university used carbon fiber and thermoplastic resin to solidify it and improved the surface of carbon fiber to make it become easily attached to resin. It took this new material only two minutes to be processed after it is moulded in a mold. If the processing is automated, it is supposedly possible to process this material in one minute that is the time used to produce a metal part of mass-produced cars. It will offer a wide range of applications including door frame and engine parts. In addition, it can be applied to other industries than the auto industry because you can purchase a block of this material and process it to build favorable shapes.