Design Fiber Composite Materials Now
Enable the High-End Technologies of Tomorrow
Fiber-reinforced composites of a polymer matrix offer the advantage of being lightweight and simultaneously showing extraordinary strength. Thus, composites – reinforced with fiberglass, carbon, or synthetic fibers – deliver high performance. Therefore, the interest of industries like aerospace, automotive, marine, and construction in such material is growing. In addition, sporting applications – such as golf clubs, tennis rackets, or racing bikes – commonly employ composite materials, to impart flexural properties in one load direction, while maintaining a lightweight and tough material.
For scientists and engineers who focus on developing new composites, it is critical to be able to visualize and measure key features. They look into the internal structure of fiber-reinforced polymers that greatly affect the strength and function and want to learn even more about the material and improve it to reach its full potential.
Microscopy Solutions for Fiber Composite Materials
What if you could have easy access to the quantitative understanding of microstructural evolution for samples ranging from very small to very large? - And understand reliability and failure mechanisms in situ? Benefit from exploring the manufacturing techniques through 3D characterization of the polymers’ microstructure in depth. Understand the reliability and failure mechanisms of composites by applying microscopy solutions.
- Processing: Observe structures non-destructively with high resolution and contrast. Visualize and quantify voids, crystallographic defects, inclusions, and damage locations. Image following tension or shear and observe microstructural changes. Cut away material virtually to detect failure mechanisms across multiple length scales. Study the methods and processes used to produce novel fiber composite materials with X-ray Microscopy (XRM) or Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).
- Structure: Observe and quantify the produced microstructures in situ with non-destructive X-ray Microscopy, or investigate structure-property relationships with multi-modal microscopy techniques, from Light Microscopy and X-ray Microscopy to Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM), combined with the help of correlative Software Solutions.
- Properties and Performance: Investigate or predict how a novel fiber composite material, like a woven ceramic matrix composite, will perform in real world conditions by conducting multi-scale in situ imaging with X-ray Microscopy.
Study The Processing of Fiber Composites
With X-ray Microscopy or Scanning Electron Microscopy
When you want to characterize your composite material comprehensively, you will need to perform in situ experiments and also investigate details at high magnifications. Benefit from imaging a sample before and after the application of tension or shear and add high resolution in an electron microscope to complement your analysis.
Segmented 3D Image of a Fiber Composite

- Observe resulting changes in the microstructure of these materials and make sure you track reliability and understand failure. Introduce non-destructive, high resolution 3D microstructural analysis of relatively large samples into your lab and use X-ray microscopy
- Acquire high contrast, high resolution X-ray images of polymer fiber composites, preserving the sample so that it may then be studied with additional methods such as dynamic mechanical analysis and mechanical shear tests.
- Use Scanning Electron Microscopy additionally to analyze fiber-based composites, for example in aerospace applications, like wing of a lightweight glider. Apply low vacuum and use specific detectors to achieve highly resolved, artifact-free imaging even when dealing with charging-prone specimens.
Imaging the Wing of a Lightweight Glider with SEM
Application Note
Non-destructive 3D Quantification of Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Materials
Click below to read the application note.

Observe and Quantify the Structure of Fiber Composites
With Light Microscopy, X-ray Microscopy, Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy and Software Solutions
Imagine you could do without the iterative loop between design, testing, and property observation when designing materials? Creating structural materials requires you to understand damage initiation and failure mechanisms in structural components. Failures often nucleate inside the bulk, are unobservable until fracture is reached, occur on the microscopic scale, and can exhibit complex 3D characteristics. And as the nucleation processes are critical for engineering against failure, traditional bulk testing methods prove to be insufficient.
Mitigate these challenges in characterization and move towards microscopy as a complementary technique to bulk mechanical testing. Benefit from introducing different microscopes in a multi-modal workflow as a viable digital material testing approach.
- Start the workflow with a light microscope which conforms to standard testing approaches. Clearly distinguish the reinforcing fibers from the matrix. Observe small defects early with this technique.
- Employ a 3D X-ray microscopy as a second step. Examine internal structural damage of a carbon fiber-reinforced composite across multiple length scales, for example cracks in the material after being subjected to load. Extend the optical 2D imaging to 3D and ensure that the same region of interest (ROI) will be imaged to keep the datasets in the appropriate context. Use a multi-scale workflow with large field of view scanning at low resolution to guide the acquisition of subsequent higher resolution scans at targeted ROIs. Performing the workflow in a non-destructive fashion enables you to gain a better understanding of the microscale damage mechanisms that occur at very specific locations. And maintain the context of the larger, macroscale sample simultaneously.
- Finally, capture the finest length scale of information and find out the localized composition using a Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB-SEM) to prepare and image your specimen further. With the help of correlative software, the FIB-SEM can be aligned to the same ROI as imaged by the optical and X-ray techniques. Retain the context of all data with each other.
Sub-micron Imaging to Highlight Cracks and Voids

Investigate the Properties and Performance of Fiber Composites
With X-ray Microscopy
Find out how materials researchers all over the world are working every day to improve our understanding of fiber composite materials. In this area, there has been a wide range of publications investigating the properties and performance of fiber composite materials with X-ray microscopy techniques.
Non-destructive 3D Imaging of Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC)
Even in this specific research field, the spectrum of research interests is remarkably wide. On one hand, there is a wide range of material types studied, namely:
- Fracture-Resistant Biomimetic Silicon Carbide Composites
- Non-Crimp Fabric Reinforced Polyester Composite
On the other hand, the studies focus on many different characteristics:
- 3D-printed structures
- Hygrothermal aging and structural damage.
Reference List: Fiber Composites XRM Applications
Microscopy Solutions for Fiber Composite Materials
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