Pultrusion is a cost-effective automated process for manufacturing continuous, constant cross-section composite profiles. This article describes process characteristics and advantages of pultrusion. It provides information on the applications of pultrusion and discusses processing equipment and tooling, material composition, and process control essential for a basic understanding of the pultrusion process.

This article describes the chemistry of phenolic resins and reviews their characteristics and properties for various composites fabrication processes. The fabrication processes include solution/hot-melt process, pultrusion, vacuum infusion, filament winding, sheet molding, and hand lay-up. The article illustrates the manufacturing process of phenolic honeycomb and provides information on the applications of phenolic composites.

This article describes the characteristics of thermoplastic composites and its material forms. It presents the steps and considerations in manufacturing the thermoplastic composites. The article provides a description of various techniques of manufacturing, such as consolidation, autoclave molding, diaphragm forming, compression molding, roll forming, bladder molding, liquid molding, filament winding, and pultrusion.

Pultrusion is an automated process for manufacturing composite materials into continuous, constant cross-sectional profiles. The article provides an overview of the pultrusion process and the wide range of materials that can be used to provide a broad spectrum of composite properties. It discusses the mechanical, physical and material properties of pultruded products, and the orientation options available to utilize the properties advantageously. The article also provides guidelines for designing pultruded products.

The goal of design is to improve the overall performance of the metal or ceramic matrix rather than to create a material with different response than the base matrix. This article focuses on design for manufacturing of polymeric composites. It discusses the various factors of contact molding, compression-type molding, resin-injection molding, and pultrusion that are considered in designing for composite manufacturing.

Advanced thermoplastic composites possess impact resistance, fracture toughness, and elevated temperature endurance properties due to their melt-fusible nature. This article presents material options available for the thermoplastic composites, such as pseudothermoplastics, post-impregnated thermoplastics, and true thermoplastics. It describes the processing methods of thermoplastic composites, including weaving, seaming, autoclaving, preconsolidation, roll consolidation, roll forming/pultruding, thermoforming, press forming, hydroforming, and diaphragm forming. The article discusses the types of joints, namely, fastened, adhesive bonded, dual polymer bonded, co-consolidated, and welded joints. It describes the joining methods of thermoplastic composites, including press forming, diaphragm forming, autoclaving, ultrasonic welding, resistance welding, and induction welding.

This article describes key processing methods and related design, manufacturing, and application considerations for plastic parts. The plastics processing methods include injection molding, extrusion, thermoforming, blow molding, rotational molding, compression molding/transfer molding, composites processing, and casting. The article describes principal features incorporated into the design of plastic parts and concludes with a discussion on materials selection methodology for plastics.

The earliest commercial use of carbon fibers is often attributed to Thomas Edison's carbonization of cotton and bamboo fibers for incandescent lamp filaments. This article describes the manufacture of PAN-based carbon fibers and pitch-based carbon fibers. It discusses the properties and characteristics of carbon fibers in terms of axial structure, transverse structure, and interfacial bonding. The article discusses the typical applications of carbon fibers, including aerospace and sporting goods. It concludes with a discussion on anticipated developments in carbon fibers.

This article discusses the types, oxide composition, as well as mechanical and physical properties of general-purpose and special-purpose glass fibers. It describes the glass melting and fiber forming processes and provides information on important commercial products such as continuous roving, woven roving, fiberglass mat, chopped strand, and textile yarns.

This article provides information on the classification of various composites manufacturing processes based on similar transport processes. The composites manufacturing processes can be grouped into three categories: Short-fiber suspension methods, squeeze flow methods, and porous media methods. The article presents an overview of modeling philosophy and approach that is useful in describing the composites manufacturing processes.

Composites, particularly fiber-reinforced polymer materials, are increasingly being adopted or considered as alternatives to conventional materials for civil infrastructure applications, such as bridges, buildings, waterfront structures, waste treatment facilities, and facilities for transmission and transport of utilities. This article provides information on seismic retrofit applications and discusses the repair and strengthening of components, such as beams, slabs, large-diameter pipes, and bridge decks.

Designing composites for structural performance initially involves meeting a set of desired performance specifications at a minimum cost. This article discusses the factors that are considered in design for manufacturing of polymeric composites. It describes the various aspects of manufacturing, forming process, and post-processing and fabrication for designing the composites.

This article discusses the historical background of composite construction in recreational equipment and sporting goods. It provides information on the applications of composites in baseball bats, tennis rackets, and golf clubs. The applications of composites in bicycling, winter sports, aquatic sports, track, field, and archery equipment are also discussed.

This article describes the interaction of composition, manufacturing process and composite properties of composites. The manufacturing process includes resin-matrix, metal-matrix, and carbon/carbon matrix processing.The article discusses the various mechanical properties of composites. It explores how variations in the composition, manufacturing, shop process instructions, and loading/environmental conditions can affect the use of a composite product in a performance/service life operation.

The design and analysis of aerospace and industrial composite components and assemblies requires a detailed knowledge of materials properties, which, in turn, depend on the manufacturing, machining, and assembly methods used. This article, through several tables and graphs, provides the mechanical properties, physical properties, and service characteristics of representative composite fiber-resin combinations, including thermoplastic matrix composites such as thermoplastic polyester resins, thermoplastic polyamide resins, and thermoplastic polysulfone resins, and thermoset matrix composites such as thermoset polyester resins, thermoset phenolic resins, thermoset epoxy resins, thermoset polyimide resins, and thermoset bismaleimide resins.

This article describes common design criteria and identifies the design considerations that have a significant effect on the end product. The design criteria include cost; size; mechanical properties; repeatability and precision of parts; damage tolerance and durability; and environmental constraints.

This article is a comprehensive collection of tables that list the values for hardness of plastics, rubber, elastomers, and metals. The tables also list the tensile yield strength and tensile modulus of metals and plastics at room temperature. A comparison of various engineering materials, on the basis of tensile strength, is also provided.

This article illustrates the polymer matrices used for composite materials. It describes the use of prepeg materials in manufacturing high-performance composites. The article discusses the various infusion processes for the development of fiber-reinforced composites, namely, resin transfer molding, vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding, and resin film infusion. It explains the composite- and matrix-toughening methods for fiber-reinforced composites, such as dispersed-phase toughening and interlayer toughening. The article concludes with information on optical microscopy, which provides an insight into the micro- and macrostructure of fiber-reinforced composites.

This article focuses on the process methods and matrix chemistries of ceramic-matrix composites. The methods include pressure-assisted densification, chemical vapor infiltration, melt infiltration, polymer infiltration and pyrolysis, and sol-gel processing. The article discusses the use of a ceramic, preceramic, or metal phase as a fluid or vapor phase reactant to form the matrix. Emphasis is placed on microstructural features that influence ultimate composite properties.

The chemical composition of Kevlar aramid fiber is poly para-phenyleneterephthalamide. Para-aramid fibers belong to a class of materials known as liquid crystalline polymers. This article discusses the manufacture of aramid fibers and the major fiber forms, such as continuous filament yarns, rovings, woven fabrics, discontinuous staple and spun yarns, fabrics, and pulp. Key representative properties of para-aramid fibers are listed in a table. The article reviews the properties of aramid fibers, including tensile modulus, tensile strength, creep and fatigue, compressive properties, toughness, thermal properties, as well as electrical and optical properties. It concludes with a discussion on the environmental behavior of para-aramid fibers.