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Composite Materials—Reflections on the First Half Century

NOV 01, 1999
Advances made in understanding the properties and behavior of composite materials are now powering the exploitation of their immense potential.
Tony Kelly
Bill Clyne

Nature tends to use composites in building strong structures. Timber, for instance, is a composite made up of strong cellulose fibers in soft lignin. Bone consists of hydroxyapatite in collagen. Although people don’t always recognize them, composites are everywhere. Only in the last 50 years or so has mankind purposely imitated these natural materials by developing artificial composites.

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References

  1. 1. A. Kelly, N. H. Macmillan, Strong Solids, Oxford U. P., Oxford, England (1986).

  2. 2. A. Kelly, R. W. Cahn, M. B. Bevered, eds. Concise Encyclopaedia of Composite Materials, Pergamon Press, Oxford, England (1994).

  3. 3. D. Hull, T. W. Clyne, An Introduction to Composite Materials, Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, England (1996).

  4. 4. T. W. Clyne, P. J. Withers, An Introduction to Metal Matrix Composites, Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, England (1993).

  5. 5. T. W. Clyne, B. Tanovic, Mechanics of Composite Materials, in Materials Science on CD, software package in MATTER series, Liverpool U. P., Liverpool, England (1995).

  6. 6. A. Kelly, C. Zweben, eds., Comprehensive Composite Materials, 6 vols., Elsevier, Oxford, England, in press.

More about the authors

Tony Kelly, University of Cambridge's department of materials science and metallurgy, Cambridge, England.

Bill Clyne, University of Cambridge's department of materials science and metallurgy, Cambridge, England.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 52, Number 11

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