with a thermoplastic resin to produce composite plies a nonlimiting example is carbon graphite fibers as a unidirectional reinforcement material that is impregnated with the thermoplastic resin for example poly ether ether ketone peek though other thermoplastics could be used nonlimiting examples of which include polyetherketoneketone pekk polyphenylene sulfide pps polyamideimide pai and polyetherimides pei a decoupling agent may be applied as a coating on the reinforcement material to further improve composite damage tolerance of the resulting fan blade another step of the process is machine lay up in which the composite plies are cut and removed from the bulk this machine process is an improvement over hand lay up methods a consolidation process or autoclave cure step is then performed in which the composite plies are shaped and solidified the unidirectional prepreg process constructs a composite material from the thermoplastic resin and reinforcement material the thermoplastic resin is heated to a liquid state then the reinforcement material is impregnated with the resin to form a reinforced polymer matrix as noted above the reinforcement material comprises unidirectional fibers more particularly continuous carbon graphite fibers and glass fibers as used herein continuous refers to reinforcement fiber material made up of fibers or fiber bundles tows that are sufficiently long to be capable of being oriented to have a specified orientation unidirectional within a matrix material of a composite for example but not limiting parallel to the load direction on the.