The History of Composites

The History of Composites: People, Science, Technology and Society introduces the reader to key milestones in the discovery and technological development of composite materials, including their processes and applications. Sections give a “bird’s eye view” that surveys the basic concept of composites from ancient times right through to the crucial inventions of glass fibers and manmade plastics in the 1930’s. Further content explores the revolution of carbon fibers and their nano-descendants graphene and carbon nanotubes while also analyzing the dynamics of innovations to further illustrate how fundamental discoveries have led to the creation of new products or improved existing ones. By presenting these fundamental discoveries, the authors hope to inspire both researchers and engineers in their quest to develop further innovations in composite materials in the future, including both their processes and applications.

Prof. Ignaas Verpoest received his master’s degree (1972) and PhD (1982) in Materials Engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. As a full professor (from 1990 until 2013) he was guiding a group that consisted of eight postdoctoral researchers and 25 PhD-students (average 2008-2013), carrying out research on the meso-mechanics of (textile-based) composites, nano-engineered composites, natural fibre-reinforced (bio)polymers and advanced production methods for composites. Since September 2013, he has been an emeritus professor at KU Leuven. He continues to be involved in research projects on carbon fibre and natural fibre-reinforced composites and he also has a special interest in “the history of composites”, and the relationship between composites and design(ers). Over the past few years, he has organized several exhibitions on “composites and design(ers)” at the Design Museum in Gent and has collaborated with JEC-World (Paris) for several exhibitions on the history of composites.

Prof. Verpoest was holder of the Toray Chair in Composite Materials at KU Leuven and was Chairman of the European Scientific Committee of The Alliance of European Flax-Linnen and Hemp (formerly CELC). He was President of the European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM), and the International Committee on Composite Materials (ICCM).

Prof. Ignaas Verpoest won several awards, amongst others the Descartes Prize for Science Communication of the European Commission (2004), and the ‘Medal of Excellence in Composite Materials’ of the University of Delaware, USA (2014). He is also co-founder of the company Econcore, producer of innovative honeycomb cores, and was instrumental in creating the startups Rein4ced, producing hybrid carbon-steel fibre reinforced thermoplastic composite bicycle frames, and BioFibix, producing innovative flax preforms for composites.

Prof. Stepan V. Lomov graduated with an M.S. in Physics-Mechanics from Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (1978) and then went on to complete his PhD in1985. He was awarded his Dr. Hab. on textile materials science in 1995, from St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design. Since 1999, Professor Lomov has been working at KU Leuven, Belgium, in the Department of Materials Engineering. He was coordinator of the Composite Materials Group from 2013 to 2020. He was holder of the Toray Chair in Composite Materials at KU Leuven between 2013 to 2022 and has been an Emeritus Professor since 2020. His research areas include composites and textiles science and engineering: internal structure, manufacturing, in-service mechanical behaviour, nanocomposites, experimental damage mechanics, micro- and meso-level geometrical and mechanical models.

Prof. Yentl Swolfs obtained his master’s degree in Materials Engineering from KU Leuven in 2010. In January 2015, he obtained his PhD in Materials Engineering. The title of his thesis was: "Hybridisation of Self-reinforced Composites: Modelling and Verifying a Novel Hybrid Concept". This PhD was performed under the framework of the EU-FP7 project HIVOCOMP. After completing his PhD, he spent a year at Imperial College London on a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship working with Prof. Silvestre Pinho. He then went on to hold a 3-year FWO postdoctoral fellowship at KU Leuven working on fibre-hybrid composites with high-performance polymer fibres. He was appointed research professor in the Department of Materials Engineering in 2019, where he leads the research line on “Micro- and Meso-structural design of composites”. He is the coordinator of the Composite Materials Group at KU Leuven, and director of the XCT Core Facility of KU Leuven. In 2022, he won the ESCM award for most promising researcher under 35 years of age. In 2025, he was awarded the Kelly Prize of ICCM, for composites scientists in the early stage of their professional career.

Dr. Mahoor Mehdikhani earned a BSc in Materials Science and Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran (2012), followed by an MSc (2014) and PhD (2018) in Materials Engineering from KU Leuven. His PhD focused on the effect of voids in fibre-reinforced composites. He is currently a senior FWO postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven, specialising in in situ multiscale damage monitoring, (XCT) image processing in composites, and computational micromechanics. In 2023, he completed a four-month funded research stay at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago. He supervises multiple PhD, master, and bachelor students and has secured research funding from FWO, KU Leuven, and the China Scholarship Council. In July 2024, he was elected to the Council of the European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM), and in November 2024, he was named runner-up for the Composites Science and Technology Young Researcher Award.