The present invention relates to a composite material obtained by in situ polymerization of a thermoplastic resin with a fibrous material. More particularly the present invention relates to a polymeric composite material obtained by in-situ polymerization of a thermoplastic (meth) acrylic resin and a fibrous material containing long fibers and its use, a process for making such a composite material and manufactured mechanical or structured part or article comprising this polymeric composite material.

The invention relates to a process for the production of saturated fiber structures. The process includes (a) introduction of a fiber structure onto a conveyor belt; (b) application of a solution including monomer and optionally including activator, and optionally including catalyst in at least one line to the fiber structure; (c) passage of the fiber structure with the solution through at least one roll pair in which pressure is exerted on the fiber structure; and (d) cooling of the saturated fiber structure, so that the monomer solidifies.

To provide a method for manufacturing a novel molded article using a commingled yarn and a composite material using a commingled yarn. The method for manufacturing a molded article, includes disposing a commingled yarn containing a continuous reinforcing fiber and a continuous thermoplastic resin fiber on a part of a surface of a prepreg, the prepreg containing continuous reinforcing fibers paralleling at least unidirectionally, and a thermosetting resin impregnated between the continuous reinforcing fibers, and heat-processing the prepreg with the commingled yarn.

Disclosed is a method for producing a prepreg, the prepreg having: a reinforcing fiber layer including reinforcing fibers and a resin composition containing component (A), component (B), and component (C), the reinforcing fibers being impregnated with the resin composition in between the fibers; and a surface fiber layer provided on the surface of the reinforcing fiber layer and including a fabric including polyamide fibers and a resin composition containing component (A), component (B), and component (C), the polyamide fibers being impregnated with the resin composition in between the fibers. The method for producing a prepreg includes a disposition step of disposing the fabric on the surface of a reinforcing fiber base material and an impregnation step of supplying a resin composition to the reinforcing fiber base material and impregnating the reinforcing fibers with the resin composition in between the fibers.

A curable matrix resin composition containing a thermoset resin component and metastable thermoplastic particles, wherein the metastable thermoplastic particles are particles of semi-crystalline thermoplastic material with an amorphous polymer fraction that will undergo crystallization upon heating to a crystallization temperature T.sub.c. A fiber-reinforced polymeric composite material containing metastable thermoplastic particles is also disclosed.

An epoxy resin, comprising an epoxy compound having a mesogenic structure, and having a value of η′2/η′1 equal to 3 or less, wherein η′1 is an initial dynamic shear viscosity (Pa.Math.s) and η′2 is a maximum value of dynamic shear viscosity (Pa.Math.s), in a measurement of dynamic shear viscosity.

A fiber-dispersed resin composite material, containing fiber dispersed in a resin, wherein the content of the fiber in the fiber-dispersed resin composite material is 1 mass % or more and less than 70 mass %, and wherein the fiber-dispersed resin composite material has a maximum color difference A determined under conditions below of 0.05 or more and 6 or less:

<Conditions>

L*, a*, and b* values in CIE (L*a*b*) color space are measured on a straight line at 8 points with an interval of 1 cm by using a chromameter, and a color difference ΔE1 between measurement points linearly adjacent to each other is calculated by [Expression 1-1] below while a maximum value among 7 calculated values for the resulting color difference ΔE1 is set as the maximum color difference A,

[00001]$\begin{array}{cc}\Delta E1={\left[{\left(L_{i+1}^{\star }-L_i^{\star }\right)}^2+{\left(a_{i+1}^{*}-a_i^{*}\right)}^2+{\left(b_{i+1}^{\star }-b_i^{\star }\right)}^2\right]}^{0.5}& \left[\mathrm{Expression}1\text{-}1\right]\end{array}$ where L*.sub.i, a*.sub.i, and b*.sub.i are the L*, a*, and b* values at i-th measurement point among the 8 measurement points, and i is an integer of 1 to 7 in [Expression 1-1].

An object of the present invention is to develop and provide a fiber-reinforced composite material having an “elongation” feature in addition to a high strength and a high elastic modulus. Further, an object of the present invention is to address problems of brittleness and peeling in the conventional fiber-reinforced composite materials. A fiber-reinforced composite material containing the bagworm silk thread as reinforcing fibers is provided.

Epoxy resin-based fibre matrix compositions contain alkyl substituted ethylene amines such as dimethyldiethylenetriamine (DMDETA, also dimethyl-1,4,7-triazaheptane), as a curing agent. These curing agents are characterized by a short curing time for a comparatively long processing time, and make it possible to obtain cured epoxy resins that exhibit low brittleness and high tensile strength and have a high glass transition temperature; as a result of which the fibre matrix composition is suitable particularly for use in pultrusion and winding processes.

A prepreg including an epoxide resin matrix system and fibrous reinforcement, at least partially impregnated by the epoxide resin matrix system, the epoxide resin matrix system having the components: a. a mixture of (i) at least one epoxide-containing resin and (ii) at least one catalyst for curing the at least one epoxide-containing resin; and b. a plurality of solid fillers for providing fire retardant properties to the fibre-reinforced composite material formed after catalytic curing of the at least one epoxide-containing resin, and wherein the fibrous reinforcement is a woven fabric ply of an interwoven mixture of glass fibres and carbon fibres, the woven fabric ply has a weight of from 350 to 550 g/m.sup.2 and is from 40 to 95 wt % glass fibres and from 5 to 60 wt % carbon fibres, each based on the weight of the woven fabric ply, and the proportion by weight of carbon fibres, expressed as C in wt %, in the woven fabric ply is defined by the formula:

[00001]$C\ge \left(-0.0048W+2.0858\right)\times 100\%,$ where W is the weight of the woven fabric ply in g/m.sup.2,
and the proportion by weight of glass fibres, expressed as G wt %, in the woven fabric ply is defined by the formula: G=(100−C) %.