A NEW ALIGNED SHORT-CARBON-FIBER-REINFORCED THERMOPLASTIC PREPREG

Short-fiber composites offer a significant advantage over long-fiber c omposites in manufacturing complex structural parts because of their m uch higher strain capacity in all directions. On the other hand, the d rawback of using randomly oriented short-fiber composites is a signifi cant loss in specific mechanical properties. Therefore, to minimize th is drawback, it is absolutely necessary that all fibers be aligned. Th is paper will introduce a new aligned short-carbon-fiber-reinforced th ermoplastic prepreg (HTA7/PEI), the manufacturing technique, and the p rocessing parameters for composite plates, as well as the first unidir ectional mechanical properties in comparison to a similar long-fiber c omposite.