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Emerging, Hybrid & Smart Composites

Edited by Christophe Binetruy (Centrale Nantes (GeM), Nantes, France) and Véronique Michaud (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland)

Functional composite materials in principle advance the field of composites beyond their specific structural properties. The intrinsically heterogeneous nature of composite materials allows additional material phases to be introduced, with specific added properties such as electrical conductivity, magnetic properties, or integrated surface functions.

While significant progress has been made on these hybrid material systems, a complete understanding of their properties is necessary to tailor their functions for a given application. Specific challenges and opportunities fuel this dynamic research area. 

This special collection in Functional Composite Materials aims at displaying to experts and interested readers the diversity in contributions, class of materials, emerging areas, cross-disciplinary applications, specific challenges, opportunities. This collection features a subset of papers originally selected to be presented at the 19th European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM19) in June 2020 in Nantes, France, which was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Articles will undergo all of the journal's standard peer review and editorial processes outlined in its submission guidelines

New articles will be added to the collection as they are published. 


  1. This paper focuses on the physicochemical changes that happen in cold mix asphalts during curing, and more specifically, while and after transitioning to different simulated seasons. Several tests were carried...

    Authors: Amélie Thiriet, Vincent Gaudefroy, Emmanuel Chailleux, Jean-Michel Piau, Frédéric Delfosse and Christine Leroy
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:12
  2. Traditional laminated composites have fibres oriented only in the in-plane of the laminate due to their manufacturing process, and are therefore very susceptible to transverse cracking and delamination from ou...

    Authors: M. Rashid, J. L. Hanus, K. Chetehouna, K. Khellil, Z. Aboura and N. Gascoin
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:11
  3. Fusion assembly is a highly promising technique for joining thermoplastic composite to thermoset composites, enabling the use of both the most affordable composite material and process for each substructure. H...

    Authors: Henri Perrin, Grégory Mertz, Noha-Lys Senoussaoui, Loïc Borghini, Sébastien Klein and Régis Vaudemont
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:10
  4. Renewable and environmentally responsive materials are an energy- and resource-efficient approach in terms of civil engineering applications, e.g. as so-called smart building skins. To evaluate the influence o...

    Authors: R. Scholz, M. Langhansl, M. Hemmerich, J. Meyer, C. Zollfrank and F. Walther
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:9
  5. This study was carried out using bleached softwood Chemi-Thermo-Mechanical Pulp to evaluate the influence of Molded Pulp Products’ manufacturing process parameters on the finished products’ mechanical and hygr...

    Authors: Claire Dislaire, Yves Grohens, Bastien Seantier and Marion Muzy
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:7
  6. The performance of electric sensors is continuously improving due to the demands of modern vehicles and electronic devices. Magnetic sensors are used in a wide field of applications. However, handling and moun...

    Authors: Moritz Liesegang and Tilmann Beck
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:6
  7. Conventional carbon fibre laminates are known to be moderately electrically conductive in-plane, but have a poor through-thickness conductivity. This poses a problem for functionality aspects that are of incre...

    Authors: Caroline O’Keeffe, Laura Rhian Pickard, Juan Cao, Giuliano Allegri, Ivana K. Partridge and Dmitry S. Ivanov
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:5
  8. Carbon-fibre reinforced composites are seeing increased deployment, especially in the aerospace industry, and the next-generation of these materials will need to meet demanding performance requirements beyond ...

    Authors: Christopher Leow, Peter B. Kreider, Christian Notthoff, Patrick Kluth, Antonio Tricoli and Paul Compston
    Citation: Functional Composite Materials 2021 2:1