Properties of Composite Materials
Arvind Chauhan, Amarjeet Singh, Deepak Kumar, Kuldeep Mishra
Abstract
Composite materials, natural or wangled materials prepared from two or more materials, are some of the most studied advanced materials for diverse applications ranging from the large, such as advanced spacecraft, tanks, trains, and automobiles, to the small: machine components including sporting goods, sensors/actuators, biomedical tools/devices, and energy storage/conversion devices such as batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, etc. In order to meet the requirements of a particular application, functionality is produced by tailoring the constituents, their stoichiometry, and their preparation techniques. These composite materials show tremendously improved physical and chemical properties when compared with the original material. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of electrical and mechanical properties of various composite materials, such as polymer-matrix composites, ceramic-matrix composites, and metal-matrix composites. A section of this chapter is dedicated to the properties of composite materials as electrodes and electrolytes in secondary batteries and fuel cells.