The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 21, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 14, 1999
Akira Nishimura, Ehime, JP;
Takashi Kobayashi, Ehime, JP;
Ikuo Horibe, Ehime, JP;
Kiyoshi Homma, Shiga, JP;
Toray Industries, Inc., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A sheet-shaped carbon fiber base material is made up from reinforcing carbon fiber and metal wire integrally formed into a carbon fiber base material which may be a a woven fabric, a tow sheet and a prepreg. The volume fraction of metal in the sheet-shaped reinforcing carbon fiber base material is no more than 4% of the carbon fiber. A laminate may also be formed from the sheet-shaped carbon fiber material, where the reinforcing carbon fiber and the metal wire are laid-up in such a way that the metal wire insertion positions are mutually different. Also disclosed is a method of detecting the number of plies in a laminate that includes non-destructively sensing with a detector the presence of metal wire in a laminate of plies of a sheet-shaped carbon fiber base material made up of reinforcing carbon fiber and metal wire integrally formed to make the sheet-shaped carbon fiber laminate material and determining the number of the plies in the laminate based on the metal wires detected.