Composite Laminates, interlaminar & transverse shear effects

You might start looking a Airplane & Space Aerospace sources. A lot has been done i that composite field there.

Composites are also used for building boats. If you have a British Consulates Library close to you, you may find some books throwing light on this topic.

Not exactly the topic but maybe you can wind it back from there. Check out the work from Goutianos.

All the best,

Fernando

Do you have a specific subject in mind for your thesis on laminates? I have worked on robotic systems that needed to cut mass in order to increase mechanical response time. The relative strength of the laminate is only one small part of the picture...cross fiber patterns inside the composite have a tremendous effect on rigidity and interstructural resonance. Here in the disk drive industry, laminates are now used where steel introduces unwanted magnetic coupling effects.

There is a whole new area coming up where laminates will play a role in the solar panel industry...because aluminum substrate needs to go the way of the dodo. Global Spec is a really good place to start.

If you tell me your focus, maybe I could point you to some real research.

Look in the area of Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials. There is lots of work being done in these areas today. You might looks for this at MIT, too, they seems to be in the materials field.

Modern Bows and Crossbows use such technology as well as F1 cars....

There is a lot of information available at composites world. I would look around there you might find something useful.

Sooter

quite a bit of work has been done with regard to radomes for both commercial and military aircraft.

Quartz fiber vs. kevlar vs. glass fiber.

most recent work for E320 adn 787 dreamliner

GD (General Dynamics) in Marion VA has a stress guy (only one last time I knew) that does their radome work. If I could remember his name I would tell you but he has a lot of info, knowledge and software that he uses for the radome work. I'll double check when I get home tonight and see what books I have on the subject.

Scooter