Second International Conference on Fatigue of Composites

Abstract : On June 4-7, 2000, the Second International Conference on Fatigue of Composites was held in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The first such conference was held in June 1997 in Paris, France. The present conference built on that foundation, by providing a forum for a limited number of leading reports from numerous countries around the world to present and discuss the science and technology of this subject Composite materials have 'come of age' in the applied community. Dental materials, medical prosthetics, high performance turbines, fuel cells, and many other engineering systems are critically dependent on composite materials. Most of these applications involve applied environments that change with time, and many applications involve time-variable severe environments (mechanical, chemical, and thermal). Fatigue, as a discipline, has become the study of the changes in the properties and performance of materials and material systems as a result of the application of such time-variable applied environments. It was the intent of the organizing committee that this conference, the only one of its kind, bring together the world's best experts and convene the community of interested scientists and engineers to advance the field of Fatigue of Composite Materials.