News (Sponsor type)

The JEC World exhibition provided an opportunity for Ignaas Verpoest and his co-editors Stepan Lomov, Yentl Swolfs and Mahoor Mehdikhani (Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, Belgium) to present their recently published book tracing the history of composites, entitled The History of Composites: People, Science, Technology, and Society. The idea for this book arose from the very favourable reception given to previous exhibitions and publications on this subject at earlier editions of the JEC World exhibition.

From aeronautics to renewable energy, composite materials have quietly shaped the modern world. Today, for the first time, their complete history has been brought together in a single reference publication. Spanning nearly 1,000 pages and bringing together contributions from over 50 international experts, the book introduces the reader to key milestones in the discovery and technological development of composite materials, including their processes and applications in various sectors, from aircraft to arts and design via wind energy, automotive, sports, construction and architecture. The reader is thus given a comprehensive perspective on the evolution of composites from ancient times right through to the crucial inventions of glass fibres and manmade plastics in the 1930s, to move on to the revolution of carbon fibres and their nano-descendants graphene and carbon nanotubes. The book also analyses the dynamics of innovations and outlines the future directions of the technology.

Cover photo: Cover of The History of Composites (source: Elsevier)