Hexcel launches new carbon fiber for aerospace applications

Hexcel Corporation (US) a leader in advanced composites technology has launched a new HexTow® continuous carbon fiber – IM9 24K – providing the market with a lightweight, strong and durable carbon fiber with enhanced value for the world’s most advanced aerospace composite applications.

HexTow IM9 24K is an intermediate modulus (IM) fiber of 24,000 filaments with an average tow tensile strength over 6,300 megapascals (MPa), a modulus of 298 gigapascals (GPa) and strain of 1.9%. This new product provides a 12% improvement in tensile strength over the Hexcel baseline IM7 fiber, which is a major component in commercial aircraft engine fan blades and other aerospace applications.

“Hexcel developed HexTow IM9 24K to be a workhorse fiber that builds on the company’s proven legacy of intermediate modulus fibers,” said Imad Atallah, Vice President, Product Management, Composite Materials. “We are excited to offer our customers a dependable carbon fiber solution for high-rate manufacturing and high-performance material designs.”

The HexTow® IM9 24K provides an alternative solution for customers seeking affordable, high-value composites and is particularly suited for manufacturing primary and secondary aerospace vehicle structures. The combination of the fiber’s high performance and translation into composite tensile strength, as well as the increased fiber line throughput and productivity provided by a 24K tow size, provides a strong value proposition when compared to other commercially available IM fibers.

With the launch of the new HexTow IM9 24K carbon fiber, Hexcel anticipates qualifying the product with highly toughened epoxies, thermosetting bismaleimide (BMI), out of autoclave (OOA) and other high performance resin systems. Composite data is currently being generated in a variety of resin systems and will be made available to customers.