Interfacial Phenomena in Composite Materials '91 is a collection of papers dealing with the science of composite interfaces, with emphasis on theoretical modeling, test methods, and characterization methods of polymer matrix, metal, or ceramic matrix composites. One paper reviews the micromechanical test methods used in evaluating mechanical properties of fiber-matrix interface. Another paper shows that the critical fiber length cannot always be considered a material constant in the framework of load transfer models based on the shear lag theory. Microwave plasma treatment is a quick technology to change fiber surface structure as the oxidation or the roughening of the fiber increases fiber-matrix adhesion. Another paper evaluates the effect of improved adhesion on mechanical performance under static, dynamic, and impact conditions. It also examines the role of fiber anisotropy on the performance of high performance polyethylene/epoxy composites. By using the Laser Raman Spectroscopy, the investigator can analyze the effects of the fiber surface treatment, the fiber modulus, the curing temperature on the Shear strength, and the fracture mechanics of the interface. The collection can be read profitably by chemists, biochemists, and academicians involved in material compound research.

Co-published with Computational Mechanics Publications, UK. Papers presented at the Third International Conference on Computer Aided Technology Design in Composite Material Technology, University of Delaware, Newark, USA, May 1992.

This book is concerned with the topical problems of mechanics of advanced composite materials whose mechanical properties are controlled by high-strength and high-stiffness continuous fibers embedded in polymeric, metal, or ceramic matrix. Although the idea of combining two or more components to produce materials with controlled properties has been known and used from time immemorial, modern composites were only developed several decades ago and have now found intensive application in different fields of engineering, particularly in aerospace structures for which high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios are required. There already exist numerous publications that cover anisotropic elasticity, mechanics of composite materials, design, analysis, fabrication, and application of composite structures but the difference between this book and the existing ones is that this is of a more specific nature. It covers specific features of material behaviour such as nonlinear elasticity, plasticity, creep, and structural nonlinearity and discusses in detail the problems of material micro- and macro-mechanics that are only slightly touched in existing books, e.g. stress diffusion in a unidirectional material with broken fibers, physical and statistical aspects of fiber strength, coupling effects in anisotropic and laminated materials, etc. The authors are designers of composite structures who were involved in practically all the main Soviet and then Russian projects in composite technology, and the permission of the Russian Composite Center - Central Institute of Special Machinery (CRISM) to use in this book the pictures of structures developed and fabricated in CRISM as part of the joint research and design project is much appreciated. Mechanics and Analysis of Composite Materials consists of eight chapters progressively covering all structural levels of composite materials from their components through elementary plies and layers to laminates.

Artificial neural networks (ANN) can provide new insight into the study of composite materials and can normally be combined with other artificial intelligence tools such as expert system, genetic algorithm, and fuzzy logic. Because research on this field is very new, there is only a limited amount of published literature on the subject.Compiling in