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Aggregate is the component of a composite material that resists compressive stress and provides bulk to the composite material. For efficient filling, aggregate should be much smaller than the finished item, but have a wide variety of sizes. For example, the particles of stone used to make concrete typically include both sand and gravel.
Aggregate composites tend to be much easier to fabricate, and much more predictable in their finished properties, than fiber composites . Fiber orientation and continuity can have an overwhelming effect, but can be difficult to control and assess. Fabrication aside, aggregate materials themselves also tend to be less expensive; the most common aggregates mentioned above are found in nature and can often be used with only minimal processing.
Not all composite materials include aggregate. Aggregate particles tend to have about the same dimensions in every direction (that is, an aspect ratio of about one), so that aggregate composites do not display the level of synergy that fiber composites often do. A strong aggregate held together by a weak matrix will be weak in tension, whereas fibers can be less sensitive to matrix properties, especially if they are properly oriented and run the entire length of the part (i.e., a continuous filament).
Most composites are filled with particles whose aspect ratio lies somewhere between oriented filaments and spherical aggregates. A good compromise is chopped fiber, where the performance of filament or cloth is traded off in favor of more aggregate-like processing techniques. Ellipsoid and plate-shaped aggregates are also used.
In most cases, the ideal finished piece would be 100% aggregate. A given application's most desirable quality (be it high strength, low cost, high dielectric constant, or low density) is usually most prominent in the aggregate itself; all the aggregate lacks is the ability to flow on a small scale, and form attachments between particles. The matrix is specifically chosen to serve this role, but its abilities should not be abused.
Experiments and mathematical models show that more of a given volume can be filled with hard spheres if it is first filled with large spheres, then the spaces between (interstices) are filled with smaller spheres, and the new interstices filled with still smaller spheres as many times as possible. For this reason, control of particle size distribution can be quite important in the choice of aggregate; appropriate simulations or experiments are necessary to determine the optimal proportions of different-sized particles.
The upper limit to particle size depends on the amount of flow required before the composite sets (the gravel in paving concrete can be fairly coarse, but fine sand must be used for tile mortar), whereas the lower limit is due to the thickness of matrix material at which its properties change (clay is not included in concrete because it would "absorb" the matrix, preventing a strong bond to other aggregate particles). Particle size distribution is also the subject of much study in the fields of ceramics and powder metallurgy.
Some exceptions to this rule include:
Toughness is a compromise between the (often contradictory) requirements of strength and plasticity. In many cases, the aggregate will have one of these properties, and will benefit if the matrix can add what it lacks. Perhaps the most accessible examples of this are composites with an organic matrix and ceramic aggregate, such as asphalt concrete ("tarmac") and filled plastic (i.e., Nylon mixed with powdered glass), although most metal matrix composites also benefit from this effect. In this case, the correct balance of hard and soft components is necessary or the material will become either too weak or too brittle.
Many materials properties change radically at small length scales (see nanotechnology). In the case where this change is desirable, a certain range of aggregate size is necessary to ensure good performance. This naturally sets a lower limit to the amount of matrix material used.
Unless some practical method is implemented to orient the particles in micro- or nano-composites, their small size and (usually) high strength relative to the particle-matrix bond allows any macroscopic object made from them to be treated as an aggregate composite in many respects.
While bulk synthesis of such nanoparticles as carbon nanotubes is currently too expensive for widespread use, some less extreme nanostructured materials can be synthesized by traditional methods, including electrospinning and spray pyrolysis. One important aggregate made by spray pyrolysis is glass microspheres. Often called microballoons, they consist of a hollow shell several tens of nanometers thick and approximately one micrometer in diameter. Casting them in a polymer matrix yields syntactic foam, with extremely high compressive strength for its low density.
Many traditional nanocomposites escape the problem of aggregate synthesis in one of two ways:
Natural aggregates: By far the most widely used aggregates for nano-composites are naturally occurring. Usually these are ceramic materials whose crystalline structure is extremely directional, allowing it to be easily separated into flakes or fibers. The nanotechnology touted by General Motors for automotive use is in the former category: a fine-grained clay with a laminar structure suspended in a thermoplastic olefin (a class which includes many common plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene). The latter category includes fibrous asbestos composites (popular in the mid-20th century), often with matrix materials such as linoleum and Portland cement.
In-situ aggregate formation: Many micro-composites form their aggregate particles by a process of self-assembly. For example, in high impact polystyrene, two immiscible phases of polymer (including brittle polystyrene and rubbery polybutadiene) are mixed together. Special molecules (graft copolymers) include separate portions which are soluble in each phase, and so are only stable at the interface between them, in the manner of a detergent. Since the number of this type of molecule determines the interfacial area, and since spheres naturally form to minimize surface tension, synthetic chemists can control the size of polybutadiene droplets in the molten mix, which harden to form rubbery aggregates in a hard matrix. Dispersion strengthening is a similar example from the field of metallurgy. In glass-ceramics, the aggregate is often chosen to have a negative coefficient of thermal expansion, and the proportion of aggregate to matrix adjusted so that the overall expansion is very near zero. Aggregate size can be reduced so that the material is transparent to infrared light.
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A composite material is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or physical properties and are merged to create a material with properties unlike the individual elements. Within the finished structure, the individual elements remain separate and distinct, distinguishing composites from mixtures and solid solutions.
Carbon fibers or carbon fibres are fibers about 5 to 10 micrometers (0.00020–0.00039 in) in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. Carbon fibers have several advantages: high stiffness, high tensile strength, high strength to weight ratio, high chemical resistance, high-temperature tolerance, and low thermal expansion. These properties have made carbon fiber very popular in aerospace, civil engineering, military, motorsports, and other competition sports. However, they are relatively expensive compared to similar fibers, such as glass fiber, basalt fibers, or plastic fibers.
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a poor barrier to air and water vapor and has a relatively low melting point. Polystyrene is one of the most widely used plastics, with the scale of its production being several million tonnes per year. Polystyrene is naturally transparent, but can be colored with colorants. Uses include protective packaging, containers, lids, bottles, trays, tumblers, disposable cutlery, in the making of models, and as an alternative material for phonograph records.
Fiberglass or fibreglass is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth. The plastic matrix may be a thermoset polymer matrix—most often based on thermosetting polymers such as epoxy, polyester resin, or vinyl ester resin—or a thermoplastic.
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)x·(C4H6)y·(C3H3N)z ) is a common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately 105 °C (221 °F). ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point.
A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation. Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Breaking is often accompanied by a sharp snapping sound.
Wood-plastic composites (WPCs) are composite materials made of wood fiber/wood flour and thermoplastic(s) such as polythene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), or polylactic acid (PLA).
Glass microspheres are microscopic spheres of glass manufactured for a wide variety of uses in research, medicine, consumer goods and various industries. Glass microspheres are usually between 1 and 1000 micrometers in diameter, although the sizes can range from 100 nanometers to 5 millimeters in diameter. Hollow glass microspheres, sometimes termed microballoons or glass bubbles, have diameters ranging from 10 to 300 micrometers.
A binder or binding agent is any material or substance that holds or draws other materials together to form a cohesive whole mechanically, chemically, by adhesion or cohesion.
Natural fibers or natural fibres are fibers that are produced by geological processes, or from the bodies of plants or animals. They can be used as a component of composite materials, where the orientation of fibers impacts the properties. Natural fibers can also be matted into sheets to make paper or felt.
Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC), also called Strain Hardening Cement-based Composites (SHCC) or more popularly as bendable concrete, is an easily molded mortar-based composite reinforced with specially selected short random fibers, usually polymer fibers. Unlike regular concrete, ECC has a tensile strain capacity in the range of 3–7%, compared to 0.01% for ordinary portland cement (OPC) paste, mortar or concrete. ECC therefore acts more like a ductile metal material rather than a brittle glass material, leading to a wide variety of applications.
Ceramic engineering is the science and technology of creating objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials. This is done either by the action of heat, or at lower temperatures using precipitation reactions from high-purity chemical solutions. The term includes the purification of raw materials, the study and production of the chemical compounds concerned, their formation into components and the study of their structure, composition and properties.
Construction aggregate, or simply aggregate, is a broad category of coarse- to medium-grained particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are the most mined materials in the world. Aggregates are a component of composite materials such as concrete and asphalt; the aggregate serves as reinforcement to add strength to the overall composite material. Due to the relatively high hydraulic conductivity value as compared to most soils, aggregates are widely used in drainage applications such as foundation and French drains, septic drain fields, retaining wall drains, and roadside edge drains. Aggregates are also used as base material under foundations, roads, and railroads. In other words, aggregates are used as a stable foundation or road/rail base with predictable, uniform properties, or as a low-cost extender that binds with more expensive cement or asphalt to form concrete. Although most kinds of aggregate require a form of binding agent, there are types of self-binding aggregate which do not require any form of binding agent.
Filler materials are particles added to resin or binders that can improve specific properties, make the product cheaper, or a mixture of both. The two largest segments for filler material use is elastomers and plastics. Worldwide, more than 53 million tons of fillers are used every year in application areas such as paper, plastics, rubber, paints, coatings, adhesives, and sealants. As such, fillers, produced by more than 700 companies, rank among the world's major raw materials and are contained in a variety of goods for daily consumer needs. The top filler materials used are ground calcium carbonate (GCC), precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC), kaolin, talc, and carbon black. Filler materials can affect the tensile strength, toughness, heat resistance, color, clarity, etc. A good example of this is the addition of talc to polypropylene. Most of the filler materials used in plastics are mineral or glass based filler materials. Particulates and fibers are the main subgroups of filler materials. Particulates are small particles of filler that are mixed in the matrix where size and aspect ratio are important. Fibers are small circular strands that can be very long and have very high aspect ratios.
Methods have been devised to modify the yield strength, ductility, and toughness of both crystalline and amorphous materials. These strengthening mechanisms give engineers the ability to tailor the mechanical properties of materials to suit a variety of different applications. For example, the favorable properties of steel result from interstitial incorporation of carbon into the iron lattice. Brass, a binary alloy of copper and zinc, has superior mechanical properties compared to its constituent metals due to solution strengthening. Work hardening has also been used for centuries by blacksmiths to introduce dislocations into materials, increasing their yield strengths.
Rubber toughening is a process in which rubber nanoparticles are interspersed within a polymer matrix to increase the mechanical robustness, or toughness, of the material. By "toughening" a polymer it is meant that the ability of the polymeric substance to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracture is increased. Considering the significant advantages in mechanical properties that rubber toughening offers, most major thermoplastics are available in rubber-toughened versions; for many engineering applications, material toughness is a deciding factor in final material selection.
Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter along with liquid, gas, and plasma. The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structural rigidity and resistance to a force applied to the surface. Unlike a liquid, a solid object does not flow to take on the shape of its container, nor does it expand to fill the entire available volume like a gas. The atoms in a solid are bound to each other, either in a regular geometric lattice, or irregularly. Solids cannot be compressed with little pressure whereas gases can be compressed with little pressure because the molecules in a gas are loosely packed.
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers, carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers, carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic, also known as carbon fiber, carbon composite, or just carbon, are extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastics that contain carbon fibers. CFRPs can be expensive to produce, but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness (rigidity) are required, such as aerospace, superstructures of ships, automotive, civil engineering, sports equipment, and an increasing number of consumer and technical applications.
SiC–SiC matrix composite is a particular type of ceramic matrix composite (CMC) which have been accumulating interest mainly as high temperature materials for use in applications such as gas turbines, as an alternative to metallic alloys. CMCs are generally a system of materials that are made up of ceramic fibers or particles that lie in a ceramic matrix phase. In this case, a SiC/SiC composite is made by having a SiC matrix phase and a fiber phase incorporated together by different processing methods. Outstanding properties of SiC/SiC composites include high thermal, mechanical, and chemical stability while also providing high strength to weight ratio.
Waste light concrete (WLC) is a type of light weight concrete where the traditional construction aggregates are replaced by a mix of shredded waste materials and a special group of additives. Used in infrastructure and building construction.
