This excellent volume will serve as an indispensable reference and source book for process design, tool and production engineers in composite manufacturing. It provides the reader with a comprehensive treatment of the theory of machining as it applies to fiber reinforced polymer composites. It covers the latest technical advances in the area of machining and tooling, and discusses the applications of fiber reinforced polymer composites in the aircraft and automotive industries.

This book covers current advances and practices in machining fibre-reinforced polymer composites under various conventional and nonconventional processes. It presents recent research and practices for effective and efficient machining of difficult-to-cut material, providing the technological ‘know-how’ on delamination-free of drilling, milling, trimming, and other cutting processes on fibre-reinforced polymer composites. It also guides the reader on the selection of optimum machining parameters, tool materials, as well as tool geometry. This book is of interest to academicians, students, researchers, practitioners, and industrialists working in aerospace, automotive, marine, and construction industries.

Presenting modern advances in the machining of ceramics and composites, this work offers broadly based, fundamental information for selecting the appropriate machining processes and parameters, developing successful manufacturing strategies, and designing novel machining systems. It focuses on scientific and engineering developments affecting the present and future of machining processes.

The potential application areas for polymer composites are vast. While techniques and methodologies for composites design are relatively well established, the knowledge and understanding of post-design issues lag far behind. This leads to designs and eventually composites with disappointing properties and unnecessarily high cost, thus impeding a wider industrial acceptance of polymer composites. Manufacturing of Polymer Composites completely covers pre- and post-design issues. While the book enables students to become fully comfortable with composites as a possible materials choice, it also provides sufficient knowledge about manufacturing-related issues to permit them to avoid common pitfalls and unmanufacturable designs. The book is a fully comprehensive text covering all commercially significant materials and manufacturing techniques while at the same time discussing areas of research and development that are nearing commercial reality.

This book offers an insight into the primary and secondary manufacturing of different class of polymer matrix composites (PMCs). The major focus is on the fabrication of a variety of PMCs with substantial coverage of various processing techniques and related advantages and limitations. The book also describes secondary manufacturing processes such as machining and joining of PMCs and provides the know-how related to developing these techniques. It discusses recently commercialized tools and techniques and highlights the opportunities provided by the design and development of newer cutting tools and machining methods. The book covers material selection guidelines, product manufacturability, product development process, and cost-estimating techniques that help readers to understand where a process fits within the overall scheme and which is appropriate for a particular component. This book provides professionals with valuable information related to composites product manufacturing as well as state-of-the-art knowledge in this field.

This book covers a wide range of conventional and non-conventional machining processes of various composite materials, including polymer and metallic-based composites, nanostructured composites and green/natural composites. It presents state-of-the-art academic work and industrial developments in material fabrication, machining, modelling and applications, together with current practices and requirements for producing high-quality composite components. There are also dedicated chapters on physical properties and fabrication techniques of different composite material groups. The book also has chapters on health and safety considerations when machining composite materials and recycling composite materials. The contributors present machining composite materials in terms of operating conditions; cutting tools; appropriate machines; and typical damage patterns following machining operations. This book serves as a useful reference for manufacturing engineers, production supervisors, tooling engineers, planning and application engineers, and machine tool designers. It can also benefit final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students, as it provides comprehensive information on the machining of composite materials to produce high-quality final components. The book chapters were authored by experienced academics and researchers from four continents and nine countries including Canada, China, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, United Kingdom and the USA.

Presents state-of-the-art processing techniques and readily applicable knowledge on processing of polymer composites The book presents the advancement in the field of reinforced polymer composites with emphasis on manufacturing techniques, including processing of different reinforced polymer composites, secondary processing of green composites, and post life cycle processing. It discusses the advantages and limitations of each processing method and the effect of processing parameters on the overall performance of the composites. Characterization and applications of reinforced polymer composites are also introduced. Reinforced Polymer Composites: Processing, Characterization and Post Life Cycle Assessment starts off by providing readers with a comprehensive overview of the field. It then introduces them to the fabrication of both short fiber/filler reinforced polymer composites and laminated reinforced polymer composites. Next, it takes them through the processing of polymer-based nanocomposites; the many advances in curing methods of reinforced polymer composites; and post life cycle processing, re-processing, and disposal mechanisms of reinforced polymer composites. Numerous other chapters cover: synthetic versus natural fiber reinforced plastics; characterization techniques of reinforced plastics; friction and wear analysis of reinforced plastics; secondary processing of reinforced plastics; and applications of reinforced plastics. -Presents the latest development in materials, processing, and characterization techniques, as well as applications of reinforced polymer composites -Guides users in choosing the best processing methods to produce polymer composites and successfully manufacture high quality products -Assists academics in sorting out basic research questions and helps those in industry manufacture products, such as marine, automotive, aerospace, and sport goods Reinforced Polymer Composites: Processing, Characterization and Post Life Cycle Assessment is an important book for materials scientists, polymer chemists, chemical engineers, process engineers, and anyone involved in the chemical or plastics technology industry.