REINFORCING-FIBER COMPOSITE MATERIAL

The present invention is an excellent reinforcing-fiber composite material that is capable of having both high mechanical properties and high fluidity during molding at high levels not achievable by conventional reinforcing-fiber composite materials containing discontinuous reinforcing fibers and a matrix resin, and that enables suppression of flow of the discontinuous reinforcing-fibers due to flow of a resin when a sheet-shaped base material is impregnated with a matrix resin by pressure application during a step for producing a sheet-shaped molded material such as a stampable sheet and an SMC which is a precursor. A reinforcing-fiber composite material comprising not less than 20 wt% but less than 70 wt% of discontinuous reinforcing fibers, and a matrix resin, wherein at least a portion of the discontinuous reinforcing fibers forms a fiber aggregation, and at least one bundle of the fiber aggregation has a surface that, when projected onto a two-dimensional plane, has at least one region where the number of monofilaments constituting the aggregation is reduced, at opposite ends in a longitudinal direction of a minimum circumscribed rectangle of the projected surface, and at portions other than the opposite ends.