Fitness Considerations for Contemporary Composite Materials: (Who’s Afraid of the Composite Micro-Crack?)

Avoiding the catastrophic failure of a large structure demands the material’s microstructure be designed in such as a way as to render any crack present innocuous thereby raising the integrity of that structure. Structural integrity of a composite material embraces contributions from: materials science and engineering; processing science; design and fabrication technology. It combines a number of interacting factors: the criticality of the application; the accessibility for and ability to inspect vital parts and components; the intended use including load spectrum and time; the consequences of impact, fatigue, temperature and hostile environment; the nature of inherent flaws; the constituent properties of the material system utilized; and it takes into account human factors.