Composite Materials

Book excerpt: Composite materials have been well developed to meet the challenges of high-performing material properties targeting engineering and structural applications. The ability of composite materials to absorb stresses and dissipate strain energy is vastly superior to that of other materials such as polymers and ceramics, and thus they offer engineers many mechanical, thermal, chemical and damage-tolerance advantages with limited drawbacks such as brittleness. Composite Materials: Manufacturing, Properties and Applications presents a comprehensive review of current status and future directions, latest technologies and innovative work, challenges and opportunities for composite materials. The chapters present latest advances and comprehensive coverage of material types, design, fabrication, modelling, properties and applications from conventional composite materials to advanced composites such as nanocomposites, self-healing and smart composites. The book targets researchers in the field of advanced composite materials and ceramics, students of materials science and engineering at the postgraduate level, as well as material engineers and scientists working in industrial R& D sectors for composite material manufacturing. - Comprehensive coverage of material types, design, fabrication, modelling, properties and applications from conventional composite materials to advanced composites such as nanocomposites, self-healing and smart composites - Features latest advances in terms of mechanical properties and other material parameters which are essential for designers and engineers in the composite and composite reinforcement manufacturing industry, as well as all those with an academic research interest in the subject - Offers a good platform for end users to refer to the latest technologies and topics fitting into specific applications and specific methods to tackle manufacturing or material processing issues in relation to different types of composite materials