Composite Materials — A Vision for the Future

Composite Materials presents recent developments and state-of-the-art achievements in the science and technology of composites. It identifies and discusses key and emerging issues for future progress in the multidisciplinary field of composites.By bringing together leading experts and promising innovators from research institutions and academia, Composite Materials highlights unresolved issues and identifies opportunities for long-term research needs to provide the reader with a vision for the future in various fields of application of composite materials. A few of the many future directions highlighted in the book are increasingly multifunctional properties; complex, hybrid and nanoreinforced materials; and tailoring in multiple dimensions and directions. The wider areas covered include, but are not limited to, the following:biomedical engineering,civil engineering,aerospace engineering,automotive engineering, andnaval engineering.Composite Materials is designed to increase the reader’s understanding of the state of the art of composite materials in a variety of industrial sectors and to explore future needs and opportunities. It will therefore be of use to professionals working in the composites industry, research centers, and academia, who already have a graduate-level knowledge of composite materials.

Luigi Nicolais has written 7 books and over 60 reviews. He has published over 400 papers in international journals and 63 in national journals. In 2006 he was given the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic as part of the Group for 2003 Scientific Research. Luigi Nicolais has been awarded the certificate of honor from the Society for the Advancement of Material Engineering for "the service given to knowledge and development of composite materials and their use". In 2000, he was appointed fellow at the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering, and in the same year he received the George Winter award from the European Society for Biomaterials.Professor Nicolais founded and directed the Interdepartmental Center for Research on Biomaterials, and is a member of the scientific committees of several institutions, such as Federchimica, Confindustria and Alenia. He is also a member of numerous professional societies, both national and international: the American Chemical Society, the British Society of Rheology, the American Institute of Chemical Engineering, the Italian Society of Biomaterials, and the Italian Chemical Society.Michele Meo is the author of more than 110 papers in refereed international journals and conferences. His research covers structural health monitoring of metallic and composite structures; damage growth modeling in nano/macro materials; and impact and crashworthiness. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Polymer and Composite Engineering at the University of Bath.Eva Milella is the author of more than 60 scientific papers published in international journals and she has concentrated her research mainly on composite and biomedical materials. In 2004 she was appointed General Director of the Italian Polymeric Materials and Structures Technology District.