ENME E4117: Mechanics of Fiber-Reinforced Composites

Course Overview

This course provides an in-depth study of the mechanics of fiber-reinforced composite materials, with a focus on their behavior across multiple length scales. You will learn to derive orthotropic stress–strain relations and failure criteria, understand the role of constituents in lamina and laminate behavior, and apply these principles to the analysis and design of composite structures. The course covers material characterization methods, modeling techniques, and experimental validation, while exploring integrated approaches to composite design. Applications include the analysis of tension, bending, and buckling of composite plates in engineering systems.

Course Instructor

Marianna Maiarù

Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics

Marianna Maiarù is an Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University and an expert in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME), virtual manufacturing, and computational mechanics. She received her PhD in Aerospace Engineering as a collaboration between Politecnico di Torino in Italy and the University of Michigan. Her research interests include composite structures, damage mechanics, multi-scale analysis, higher-order finite elements, and additive manufacturing. Maiarù has received numerous grants from NASA, NSF, and the Air Force, including the AFOSR Young Investigator Program award in 2020 and the NSF CAREER award in 2022. She received the DEStech Young Researcher Award in 2021 and the AIAA ICME Prize in 2020 and 2022. Prof. Maiaru is an Assistant Editor for Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing.