Toray Industries, Inc.

Eita Konno

Hiroyuki Ome

Masayuki Koshi

Shoma Ishida

Taito Ueda

Mayuka Yamada

The invention aims to provide a tape-shaped prepreg including unidirectionally oriented reinforcing fibers and a thermoplastic resin composition and being high in handleability during molding and high in adhesiveness to other members. The tape-shaped prepreg includes unidirectionally oriented reinforcing fibers and a thermoplastic resin composition and has an arithmetic average roughness (Ra) of 0.1 to 10 μm in a direction perpendicular to the orientation direction of the reinforcing fibers, as measured according to JIS B 0601: 2013, and a warpage rate of 5% or less as determined by the procedure specified in (i) to (iii) below: (i) place a test piece of the above tape-shaped prepreg having a length of 100 mm in the fiber orientation direction on a plane in such manner that the end portions curl upward, (ii) measure the vertical distance from the highest position at the right end of the curled tape to the plane, which is denoted by a, and the vertical distance from the highest position at the left end to the plane, which is denoted by b, and calculate the arithmetic average of a and b, which is defined as the warpage distance, and (iii) calculate the warpage rate by the following equation: warpage rate (%)=warpage distance (mm)/100 (mm)×100.

Tape-shaped prepreg and a method for production thereof

A fiber-reinforced thermoplastic-resin base includes continuous reinforcing fibers aligned in parallel to each other and a thermoplastic resin is impregnated thereinto, wherein the base has a fiber volume content of 40-65 vol % and a dispersion parameter D of the fibers, determined by (i)-(iv), of 90% or more: (i) a cross-section of the fiber-reinforced thermoplastic-resin base that is perpendicular to the alignment direction of the reinforcing fibers is divided into a plurality of sections, and one of the sections is photographed, (ii) the photograph image of the section is divided into a plurality of square units each having a one-side length t, (iii) a dispersion parameter d is calculated, (iv) with respect to other sections, (i) to (iii) are repeatedly performed, and an average value of dispersion parameters d of the plurality of sections is dispersion parameter D.

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Nagoya, Japan

Eita Konno