Preface Xi stiffness,strength,energy absorption and impact loading.Hybrid schemes can be used and fibres of different materials can be oriented in the critical directions to optimize the desired criterion.This technology is discussed in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 studies the 3-D forming of continuous fibre reinforcements for composite materials. Finally,resin impregnation and xyz prediction of fabric properties are analysed in Chapter 9. I want to acknowledge the contributions from my colleagues Dr Frank Ko (Drexel University,USA),Dr Klaus Drechsler (Daimler Benz, Germany),Dr Ignaas Verpoest(KUL Leuven,Belgium),Dr Steve Tsai (Stanford University,USA),Dr H Hamada(Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan),Dr Timothy D Kostar(Foster Miller,USA),Dr Adriaan Beukers (TU Delft,The Netherlands)and Dr Brian Hill (University of Ulster, Northern Ireland)and their teams.It has been a great pleasure for me to share with all of them the challenge to go deeper into this attractive subject. Antonio Miravetestiffness, strength, energy absorption and impact loading. Hybrid schemes can be used and fibres of different materials can be oriented in the critical directions to optimize the desired criterion. This technology is discussed in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 studies the 3-D forming of continuous fibre reinforcements for composite materials. Finally, resin impregnation and xyz prediction of fabric properties are analysed in Chapter 9. I want to acknowledge the contributions from my colleagues Dr Frank Ko (Drexel University, USA), Dr Klaus Drechsler (Daimler Benz, Germany), Dr Ignaas Verpoest (KUL Leuven, Belgium), Dr Steve Tsai (Stanford University, USA), Dr H Hamada (Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan), Dr Timothy D Kostar (Foster Miller, USA), Dr Adriaan Beukers (TU Delft, The Netherlands) and Dr Brian Hill (University of Ulster, Northern Ireland) and their teams. It has been a great pleasure for me to share with all of them the challenge to go deeper into this attractive subject. Antonio Miravete Preface xi RICPR 7/10/99 7:08 PM Page xi