Resources: Empty juice carton, ice stick tray or mould, quick set plaster, clamp stand, string, masses, wool, wooden sticks, straws, foil and paper strips.
Core Handout: Experiment instructions and table to record results. Includes questions to consolidate and apply knowledge and understanding.
Challenge Handout: Design your own imaginary composite material.
Recap on the properties of materials and how materials such as wood, concrete and plastic can be reinforced with other materials to improve their strength and durability.
Fruit juice often comes in packaging that is made from layers of paper laminated in plastic.
Ask the students to suggest how the packaging would be different if it was only made from paper or only made from plastic. The students should discuss their ideas with their talk partners. It is worthwhile cutting open an empty juice carton to show the students the layers of materials.
Use the presentation slides to look at examples of composite materials and the new properties that the composite material has. Compare these to the materials combined to make the composite. Ask the students to complete the experiments investigating the best material to use to increase the strength of a composite material. Record results of strength test on the handout and evaluate results.
Career Film: Take a tour around Rolls Royce SMR's Heritage Museum in Derby to find out about Lucas Martin's job. Lucas works as an Environment Interface Engineer for Rolls Royce SMR.
Expert Film: This is Lucas Martin. Lucas works as an Environment Interface Engineer for Rolls Royce SMR. Listen to Lucas as he describes the properties of composites.
Strength Investigation
In this experiment, the students will be investigating how the addition of materials to plaster affects the strength of the overall composite material.
NB: 100 g ≈ 1 N
Support: Ask the students to give 3 ways they stayed safe (or will stay safe) during the practical.
Challenge: Ask the students to design their own imaginary composite material for a particular use. They need to consider the properties the item must have for its use and describe and explain the materials that will be mixed to create the composite. E.g. colouful raincoat must be waterproof, lightweight and be worn - cotton and polymer can both be made colourful and are lightweight. Cotton is comfortable to wear and polymers are waterproof, so by combining their properties, you will get a waterproof, wearable raincoat.
Get students to discuss their results and share examples of their imaginary composite materials (if they have completed the challenge task).
Composites are pretty cool. A composite material is a unique material that has been created through combining different materials together. This essentially creates a superior material with its own unique characteristics. Composite materials are usually stronger due to the combination of different materials. Modern composites usually contain a structural fibre and a plastic. The fibre is the material that provides both the structure and the strength of the new product. The plastic component is the material that holds the fibre together. The two are required to build a unique material that is stronger than the two individual materials alone.
Some examples of fibres used include: boron fibre, carbon fibre, fiberglass and natural fibre which includes wood and flax etc. Common plastics that are used include: polyester, polyurethane and polypropylene.
Composite materials are essential to modern-day living. A common example is concrete. To construct concrete, both steel rebar and cement are needed. The steel provides the strength and the stiffness that the concrete needs to stay put. The cement would crack on its own but combined with steel, a rigid product is formed. Composite materials are usually a lot lighter, more resistant to corrosion and are pretty flexible.
You can think of composite materials in a similar way to natural selection. Desired traits are chosen to make a composite material. A composite material is the end product. It is a material that is new and unique and provides all of the desired traits. In natural selection, only the animals with the desired traits survive and thus pass on their genes to the next generation. New individuals are created with these desired traits and the cycle goes on. It is survival of the fittest. With composite materials, desired characteristics are chosen to produce desired products. These products are advantageous and thus very common nowadays.
Composite materials are great for cars. They make them a lot lighter and as a result, fuel efficient. The cars body armour is a lot more resistant to damage and the stress of potential high winds. Modern-day cars require a lot less maintenance and have a longer lifespan than older materials. They still use the characteristics of traditional materials but combine them together to make something that is a lot more durable. Other important advantages of composite materials include: their durability, flexibility, chemical resistance, high impact strength and performance and their ability to be moulded etc.