Defects and damage in composite materials and structures Preface This book aims to provide a detailed description of defects and damage associated with advanced composite materials and structures. The topic of defects and damage in advanced composite materials has been discussed in many reports and articles over the past 50 years. Most of the early work during the 1970s through to the 1990s has not lost any relevance in todays technological understanding of composite materials and structures. In fact current work in the field of defects and damage only confirms the understanding and outcomes of the earlier work to be relevant and applicable. This book has accumulated the information developed over the past decades and massaged this data and knowledge into a concise document. The authors own experience in the field of in service activities for composite airframe maintenance and repair is added to that wealth of knowledge with a particular thrust into the criticality of damage from a structural integrity point of view the relevance of identifying the damage and how to repair the defects and damage. Chapter 1 outlines the general applications of composite materials and fundamental definitions of defects and damage. Chapter 2 provides a description of the defects and damage types in composite materials and structures. This chapter categorizes the defects and damage types based on size occurrence and location leading to generalization of the types of defects and damage. Chapter 3 provides guidance into the various NDI methods that can be used to find and identify