aluminum. Tt is used on the upper fuselage of the Airbus A380 and the leading edges of the tail plane, and has been credited with over 500 kg of weight savings as compared to previ ously used materials. In addition to weight savings, GLARE. provides. improved fatigue strength and corrosion resistance. * The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has an all composite fuselage constructed mainly from Bibliography 231 carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. In addition to ‘weight savings, the fuselage barrel is constructed in one piece and joined end to end, eliminating the need for an estimated 0,000. fasteners. Composites make up around 50% of the weight of the Dreamliner, as compared to 12% on the 777 aircraft, first introduced in 1994. SUMMARY + Composites are an important class of engineered materials with numerous attrac tive properties. Three major categories are fiber-reinforced plastics, metal-matrix, composites, and ceramic-matrix composites. They have a wide range of applica tions in the aircraft, aerospace, and transportation industries; sporting goodss and structural components. * In fiber-reinforced plastics, the fibers usually are glass, graphite, aramids, or boron. Polyester and epoxies commonly are used as the matrix material, These composites have particularly high toughness and high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. + In metal-matrix composites, the fibers typically are graphite, boron, aluminum, oxide, silicon carbide, molybdenum, or tungsten. Matrix materials generally con sist of aluminum, aluminum-tithium alloy, magnesium, coppers, titanium, and superalloys. ‘+ For ceramic-matrix composites, the fibers are usually carbon and aluminum oxide, and the matrix materials are silicon carbide, silicon nitride, aluminum oxide, carbon, or mullite (a compound of aluminum, silicon, and oxygen). + In addition to the type and quality of the materials used, important factors in the structure of composite materials are the size and length of the fibers, their vol- ume percentage compared with that of the matrix, the strength of the bond at the fiber-mmatrix interface, and the orientation of the fibers in the matrix. key TERMS Advanced composites Engineered materials Ma Pyrolysis Fiber pullout Metal matrix Reinforced plastics Fibers Polymer matsix: Silane Hybrid Precursor Whiskers BIBLIOGRAPHY Bansal, N.P. (ed.), Handbook of Ceramic Composites, Springer, 2004, Barbero, FJ. Introduction to Composite Materials Design, CRC Press, 1998, Agarwal, B.D., Brourman, L.J., and Chandrashekhara, K., Analysis and Performance of Fiber Composites, 3rd ed., Wiley, 2006, ASM Handbook, Vol. 21: Composites, ASM International, 2001