This volume contains the revised versions of papers presented at the 4th Seminar on Experimental Techniques and Design in Composite Materials. The papers have been divided into five sections: fatigue, test methods, design, impact and modelling.

This volume contains the revised versions of papers presented at the 4th Seminar on Experimental Techniques and Design in Composite Materials. The papers have been divided into five sections: fatigue, test methods, design, impact and modelling.

Volume is indexed by Thomson Reuters CPCI-S (WoS). Several things have changed in the world of composites in recent years. While many industries have reverted to metals for motor car bodies, composites have found new openings in areas such as civil engineering, particularly because they offer a simple and rapid means of restoring damaged structures. Nevertheless, the main obstacle to their widespread use in a variety of promising fields, such as machine construction, continues to be the difficulty of treating concepts such as heterogeneity and anisotropy.

Over much of the last three decades, the evolution of techniques for characterizing composite materials has struggled to keep up with the advances of composite materials themselves and their broadening areas of application. In recent years, however, much work has been done to consolidate test methods and better understand those being used. Finally,

Composite materials have been representing most significant breakthroughs in various industrial applications, particularly in aerospace structures, during the past thirty five years. The primary goal of Advanced Mechanics of Composite Materials is the combined presentation of advanced mechanics, manufacturing technology, and analysis of composite materials. This approach lets the engineer take into account the essential mechanical properties of the material itself and special features of practical implementation, including manufacturing technology, experimental results, and design characteristics. Giving complete coverage of the topic: from basics and fundamentals to the advanced analysis including practical design and engineering applications. At the same time including a detailed and comprehensive coverage of the contemporary theoretical models at the micro- and macro- levels of material structure, practical methods and approaches, experimental results, and optimisation of composite material properties and component performance. The authors present the results of more than 30 year practical experience in the field of design and analysis of composite materials and structures. * Eight chapters progressively covering all structural levels of composite materials from their components through elementary plies and layers to laminates* Detailed presentation of advanced mechanics of composite materials * Emphasis on nonlinear material models (elasticity, plasticity, creep) and structural nonlinearity

Smart Composites: Mechanics and Design addresses the current progress in the mechanics and design of smart composites and multifunctional structures. Divided into three parts, it covers characterization of properties, analyses, and design of various advanced composite material systems with an emphasis on the coupled mechanical and non-mechanical behaviors. Part one includes analyses of smart materials related to electrically conductive, magnetostrictive nanocomposites and design of active fiber composites. These discussions include several techniques and challenges in manufacturing smart composites and characterizing coupled properties, as well as the analyses of composite structures at various length and time scales undergoing coupled mechanical and non-mechanical stimuli considering elastic, viscoelastic (and/or viscoplastic), fatigue, and damage behaviors. Part two is dedicated to a higher-scale analysis of smart structures with topics such as piezoelectrically actuated bistable composites, wing morphing design using macrofiber composites, and multifunctional layered composite beams. The analytical expressions for characterization of the smart structures are presented with an attention to practical application. Finally, part three presents recent advances regarding sensing and structural health monitoring with a focus on how the sensing abilities can be integrated within the material and provide continuous sensing, recognizing that multifunctional materials can be designed to both improve and enhance the health-monitoring capabilities and also enable effective nondestructive evaluation. Smart Composites: Mechanics and Design is an essential text for those interested in materials that not only possess the classical properties of stiffness and strength, but also act as actuators under a variety of external stimuli, provide passive and active response to enable structural health monitoring, facilitate advanced nondestructive testing strategies, and enable shape-changing and morphing structures.

The last decade has seen a significant growth in the processing and fabrication of advanced composite materials. This volume contains the up-to-date contributions of those with working experience in the automotive, marine, aerospace and construction field. Starting with modern technologies concerned with assessing the change in material microstructure in terms of the processing parameters, methodologies are offered to account for tradeoffs between the fundamental variables such as temperature and pressure that control the product quality. The book contains new ideas and data, not available in the open literature.