Composite Materials/Syllabus


School of Engineering
Mechanics of Composite Materials

This course is designed as an introduction for the student to the basic theory and applications of modern composite materials. It is assumed that the student has an understanding of all the basic engineering knowledge up until this point. Without going far into detail, the student is best suited for this course by having the following prerequisites:

Each Lesson should take a week to complete entirely; there will be plenty of problems to work on and it is important, if you wish to have a great understanding of the material, to try all the problems available. The length of this course will be approximately three months. Over that time period the student will learn all of the following course material:

  • The basic definitions/structures of composites
  • Stress/Strain and the transformation
  • Isotropic stress/strain relations
  • Orthotropic and transversely isotropic stress relations
  • Estimates of composite stiffness
  • Maximum strain and maximum stress
  • Tsai-Hill and Tsai-Wu theories
  • Laminated composites, cross and angle ply, symmetric and anti-symmetric laminates
  • Design Project: Design of a pressure vessel using fiber-reinforced composites.


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