Structural composites for multifunctional applications: current challenges and future trends

TL;DR

This review discusses the current state and future challenges of fiber-reinforced composites with multifunctional capabilities, emphasizing novel manufacturing techniques and applications like energy storage and harvesting.

Contribution

It highlights the integration of advanced fiber deposition, innovative molding, and multiscale modeling to develop multifunctional composites with tailored properties.

Findings

Emerging manufacturing techniques enable optimized composite properties.

Multifunctional capabilities like energy storage and harvesting are promising.

Future trends focus on integrating multifunctionality with structural performance.

Abstract

This review paper summarizes the current state-of-art and challenges for the future developments of fiber-reinforced composites for structural applications with multifunctional capabilities. After a brief analysis of the reasons of the successful incorporation of fiber-reinforced composites in many different industrial sectors, the review analyzes three critical factors that will define the future of composites. The first one is the application of novel fiber-deposition and preforming techniques together with innovative liquid moulding strategies, which will be combined by optimization tools based on novel multiscale modelling approaches, so fiber-reinforced composites with optimized properties can be designed and manufactured for each application. In addition, composite applications will be enhanced by the incorporation of multifunctional capabilities. Among them, electrical conductivity, energy storage (structural supercapacitors and batteries) and energy harvesting (piezoelectric and solar energy) seem to be the most promising ones.