“The String and Glue of our World” is a book about the science, engineering, history, and art of making things out of composites told in a manner that is hopefully approachable, engaging, and entertaining, even for the casual reader. It is not intended to replace or even be a textbook on the subject nor for the serious practitioner who has lots of experience with composites and needs a reference book. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. engineer or scientist to understand the book and appreciate the significance and beauty of composite materials.

String and Glue is arranged in a sense like what Elon Musk describes as the most important way to view knowledge – as a “semantic tree”. In that vein, I introduce first the history and motivation for the why of composites, then start with the building blocks of these materials – the elements themselves from the Periodic Table and why each of the elements I focus on are important. This forms the trunk of the tree – the trunk of our semantic tree of knowledge of composites. Then I build out the branches of the tree with descriptions of the strings, glues, how they are put together, and who is putting them together. Of course, each of these three main branches has its own sub-branches. And then toward the end of the book I give you some ideas about how to get involved in this industry and make the magic happen for yourself. Follow me on this journey into this fascinating subject and maybe learn how to make the magic happen for yourself – become a composite material aficionado.

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A Few More Tidbits in Composites Sustainability News

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins I received my November Issue of the Composites World magazine (electronically of course) this week and as usual it had a couple of interesting developments in the world of composite materials sustainability, one of which is sort of fun – if you like water sports. So, I thought I would write about these and a couple of other things that I came across in my information feed about composites. A

5 minutes ago5 min read

Collection of Composites Sustainability Tidbits from Last Two Weeks

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins Since this is supposed to be a “newsletter” I thought I would collect some tidbits of news on the composites sustainability front that have come across my feed in the last couple of weeks. I did want to get a couple of state of the art posts done, so the last two weeks I haven’t been keeping everyone up with the latest news. And there has been some news to keep up with, especially in the rec

Nov 56 min read

Now For the State of the Art in Carbon Fiber Recycling

#composites, #sustainability, #recycling, #carbonfiber, #thermolysis, #solvolysis Last week I went through the state of the art in wind turbine blade recycling, which could alternatively have been titled “state of the art in glass fiber recycling” because most of the wind turbine blades that have come to the end of their useful life or are nearing their demise are primarily made of glass fiber composites. In some of the larger blades, there is a carbon fiber spar cap that I

Oct 298 min read

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A Few More Tidbits in Composites Sustainability News

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins I received my November Issue of the Composites World magazine (electronically of course) this week and as usual it had a couple of interesting developments in the world of composite materials sustainability, one of which is sort of fun – if you like water sports. So, I thought I would write about these and a couple of other things that I came across in my information feed about composites. A

5 minutes ago5 min read

Collection of Composites Sustainability Tidbits from Last Two Weeks

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins Since this is supposed to be a “newsletter” I thought I would collect some tidbits of news on the composites sustainability front that have come across my feed in the last couple of weeks. I did want to get a couple of state of the art posts done, so the last two weeks I haven’t been keeping everyone up with the latest news. And there has been some news to keep up with, especially in the rec

Nov 56 min read

Now For the State of the Art in Carbon Fiber Recycling

#composites, #sustainability, #recycling, #carbonfiber, #thermolysis, #solvolysis Last week I went through the state of the art in wind turbine blade recycling, which could alternatively have been titled “state of the art in glass fiber recycling” because most of the wind turbine blades that have come to the end of their useful life or are nearing their demise are primarily made of glass fiber composites. In some of the larger blades, there is a carbon fiber spar cap that I

Oct 298 min read

What is the State of the Art in Wind Turbine Blade Recycling

#composites, #recycling, #windenergy, #thermolysis, #solvolysis, #pyrolysis, #sustainability I have talked about this repeatedly by giving examples of companies and organizations, some largely funded and supported by governments, in previous posts. This week, I thought I would provide a summary of what I see as the State of the Art in recycling wind turbine blades here in the US and in the EU and UK. A lot has happened in the last couple of years, and some companies are not

Oct 229 min read

ABOUT ME

Ned Patton, Ph.D., P.E. lives and works in San Diego California. He has more than 40 years of experience in research and technology development, and has been involved with and has been a proponent of composites for over 35 of those years. Currently working at Oceaneering International as a senior technical professional, he is actively developing composite material parts and structures for use undersea.