In an advanced society like ours we all depend on composite materials in some aspect of our lives. Fibreglass , developed in the late 1940s, was the first modern composite and is still the most common. It makes up about 65 per cent of all the composites produced today and is used for boat hulls, surfboards, sporting goods, swimming pool linings, building panels and car bodies. You may well be using something made of fibreglass without knowing it. Composite materials are formed by combining two or more materials that have quite different properties.
Composites exist in nature.
Cellulose is also found in cotton and linen, but it is the binding power of the lignin that makes a piece of timber much stronger than a bundle of cotton fibres. Not a new idea Humans have been using composite materials for thousands of years. Take mud bricks for example. A cake of dried mud is easy to break by bending, which puts a tension force on one edge, but makes a good strong wall, where all the forces are compressive. A piece of straw, on the other hand, has a lot of strength when you try to stretch it but almost none when you crumple it up.