Advanced Polymer Composites in Aerospace Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Polymer composites are increasingly used in aerospace applications due to their lightweight and high specific stiffness and strength properties. Many structural components in the aerospace industry are designed as thin-walled laminated structures, which allows them to be elastically folded into a small volume for easy transportation and deployed to construct large-scale structures for potential use. These structures are known as deployable structures, and they may be subjected to a wide range of mechanical loads (e.g., tension, compression, bending and twisting, etc.) under working conditions, including both static and dynamic effects. The anisotropic property of composite laminates makes it more challenging to study the nonlinear deformation behaviour of deployable structures made of polymer composites. Analytical methods, numerical simulation techniques as well as experiments are in urgent need to investigate and optimize the performance of composite deployable structures.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide an opportunity to discuss recent progress in theoretical, computational, and experimental studies on the design and analysis of composite deployable structures. Both original research papers and review articles are welcome. The scope includes but is not limited to:

1. Multiscale modelling of polymer composites.
2. Synthesis and characterization of polymer composites for aerospace applications.
3. Shape memory polymer composites and applications.
4. Design and optimization of novel composite deployable structures.
5. Deployment dynamics of space deployable structures.
6. Failure and instability of thin-walled composite structures.

Dr. Ning An
Prof. Dr. Xiaofei Ma
Prof. Dr. Jinxiong Zhou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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