US Patent Issued to Mitsubishi Chemical on July 14 for "Sheet molding compound production method and fiber mat deposition device" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,679,000, issued on July 14, was assigned to Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (Tokyo).

"Sheet molding compound production method and fiber mat deposition device" was invented by Kentaro Oda (Tokyo), Yasushi Watanabe (Tokyo), Tadao Samejima (Tokyo) and Yukihiro Mizutori (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of manufacturing a sheet molding compound (SMC) according to an aspect of the present invention comprises: (i) drawing out a carrier film from a roll to travel on a conveyance path such that the surface of the carrier film is horizontal; (ii) cutting a continuous carbon fiber bundle into short carbon fiber bundles with a chopper dispo...