Industrial Exploitation of Carbon Fibre in the UK, USA and Japan

This paper describes the invention of high strength carbon fibre and its subsequent exploitation by three companies: Courtaulds in the UK, Hercules in the USA and Toray in Japan. Of these, Toray has become the most successful. Courtaulds ceased carbon fibre production in 1991, whilst Hercules sold its carbon fibre plant in 1996. Without a special relationship with a large local market (such as the US Department of Defence), success in the manufacture of an internationally traded material such as carbon fibre depends on achieving competitive quality and price. Toray's consistent investment in process technology improvements has enabled them to become the world leader in carbon fibre production. This has been achieved, despite periods of negligible profitability, because of the characteristics of the Japanese innovation system.