Hexcel adds Salt Lake City production of HexPly M901 prepreg

Hexcel Corporation announces that M901 will be made at Salt Lake City, giving US customers a local source. The company developed the system in Duxford, UK, and currently produces it in Dagneux, France. Hexcel says the transfer builds on the Utah site’s prepreg experience and widens its US range of aerospace and industrial composites.

The company cites cure cycles of four to five minutes at the shortest and a glass-transition temperature (Tg) as high as 180 °C (356 °F), varying with the cure and post-cure schedule. Processing options include autoclave, press, hot-in/hot-out and compression moulding. Out life at room temperature reaches 15 weeks, and the system suits thick sections.

Imad Atallah, Vice President for Commercial Growth at Hexcel, says manufacturers should not have to trade structural performance against production speed. He sees M901 as a route to higher volumes as programmes grow, and says a Salt Lake City source brings the capability closer to customers in the Americas.

Hexcel lists autonomous airframes and defence systems among the target uses, together with automotive, medical and wider industrial applications. It says users can raise throughput, make better use of tooling and move to faster press processing while keeping the same resin system.

Hexcel exhibits at CAMX in Atlanta, 22 to 24 September 2026, booth P4. Its technical staff there will take questions on compression moulding, high-rate production and switching from slower-curing legacy prepregs.

Why it matters

Hexcel pitches shorter cure cycles as the route from development builds to series production for autonomous airframes. It places M901 in the gap between conventional aerospace prepregs and cheaper industrial grades, where programmes leaving development and early production sit.

The company says its customers include emerging applications now scaling from development and first production toward higher rates. Local supply also matters for procurement. Today M901 is made in France; Utah adds a second production location for a material tied so far to Europe.