TOWARD COMPREHENSIVE RESEARCH AND APPLICATION OF COMPOSITES

Although remarkable progress has been achieved in the field of composi te research in the last two decades, such progress was made mainly in application research, such as the design of new composite materials, p erformance evaluations of composites, etc. The basic theory of composi tes is still the same as that of twenty years ago. New composites theo ry will have to be developed in the next two decades. An example is in the reinforcement of rubbers by carbon black. Its reinforcement is re markable and the strength of the composite becomes about ten to twenty times that of the original pure rubber, achieved by putting a small v olume of carbon black particles in the rubber; this reinforcement effe ct could not have been predicted by the old theories. Textile composit es will become more important materials in the future. As to their app lication, freedom of design of textile structure will enable the desig n of much more sophisticated fiber-composite materials and intelligent materials in the future.