Abstract
This review is mainly concerned with the computer aided designing with composite materials. The history of research and development of composite materials is similar to that of computers in the fact that both were born about 45 years ago, have grown up rapidly along with the development of space technology in 1960's and now are being among government projects. It is no exaggeration to say that the high technology of computers has spurred the growth of composites technology. Especially in recent micro-or personal computers are greatly utilized in various fields of research on composite mateials such as in stress analysis, designing, data processing, laboratory automation in materials testing and molding or manufacturing processes.
Composite materials can be characterized as what we call tailored materials. This implies the possibility of designing in a well-balance state between considerations of manufacturing and cost, and the requirement for stiffness and strength. In order to realize this, our attention is now being paid to the establishment of the optimum materials designing method using the laminated plate theory as well as the optimum design technique of structural systems. This problem leads to the construction of computer aided design or computer aided engineering system and the ultimate object will be the completion of the micro-computer expert system for the research and development of composite materials.
