For my first few projects, I’ll be messing around with composites. I’ve had a fair amount of experience working with composites, but I still feel like I don’t have an intuitive understanding of them. Seeing how composites are used in practice, I suspect that’s true for other engineers as well. There’s a joke about “black aluminum” made when engineers use carbon fiber in a way that does it no justice. I think our schools and books are partly responsible -- there’s usually an abrupt jump from “what is a composite” to “let’s calculate ABD matrices.” I hope to improve my (and your) understanding of them by talking through the basic concepts in plain English.
#17 - Composites in Plain English Pt. 1
#17 - Composites in Plain English Pt. 1
#17 - Composites in Plain English Pt. 1
For my first few projects, I’ll be messing around with composites. I’ve had a fair amount of experience working with composites, but I still feel like I don’t have an intuitive understanding of them. Seeing how composites are used in practice, I suspect that’s true for other engineers as well. There’s a joke about “black aluminum” made when engineers use carbon fiber in a way that does it no justice. I think our schools and books are partly responsible -- there’s usually an abrupt jump from “what is a composite” to “let’s calculate ABD matrices.” I hope to improve my (and your) understanding of them by talking through the basic concepts in plain English.