• Each material has desirable properties, but in most situations the perfect material is never found.
• Composites allow mixing of materials to get the best of both.
• BASIC PRINCIPLE: different types of materials are blended together. The materials are often quite different in terms of properties, and the results are a new material that has many of the desired properties of each material.
- clay bricks with embedded straw
- samurai swords with steel/iron alternation of layers
• for reinforced plastic composites, 2,500,000,000 pounds of plastic based composites were shipped in a wide variety of products in the mid 80’s