Additive manufacturing is transforming modern industries by enabling the production of lightweight, complex structures while minimizing material waste and energy consumption. This review explores its evolution, covering historical developments, key technologies, and emerging trends. It highlights advancements in material innovations, including metals, polymers, composites, and ceramics, tailored to enhance mechanical properties and expand functional applications. Special emphasis is given to bioinspired designs and their contribution to enhancing structural efficiency. Additionally, the potential of these techniques for sustainable manufacturing and industrial scalability is discussed. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of Additive Manufacturing’s impact on design optimization and material performance, offering insights into future research and industrial applications.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of natural fiber-reinforced composites (NFRCs) for lower-limb prosthetic designs. It covers the characteristics, types, and properties of natural fiber-reinforced composites as well as their advantages and drawbacks in prosthetic designs. This review also discusses successful prosthetic designs that incorporate NFRCs and the factors that make them effective. Additionally, this study explores the use of computational biomechanical models to evaluate the effectiveness of prosthetic devices and the key factors that are considered. Overall, this document provides a valuable resource for anyone interested in using NFRCs for lower-limb prosthetic designs.

The use of composite materials in aerospace structures has led to significant weight reductions and improved performance. However, their behavior under low-energy impact remains a critical concern due to the potential initiation of barely visible damage. This study investigates the crack initiation mechanisms in composite airfoil profiles subjected to low-energy impact, simulating real-world scenarios such as hail or bird strikes. Two types of airfoil profiles were fabricated using bidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) with epoxy resin and tested under ASTM D7136 impact conditions. Tensile tests following ASTM D3039 were conducted to assess post-impact mechanical behavior. The damage patterns were analyzed using high-resolution microscopy and non-destructive inspection techniques. Results revealed that damage severity and propagation depend on impact energy levels and airfoil geometry, with SC(2)-0714 exhibiting better impact resistance than GOE777-IL. Microscopic analysis confirmed that delamination initiated at 45° fiber orientations, expanding along interlaminar regions, while airfoil curvature influenced the impact energy dissipation.

The glass industry is widely diverse regarding its applications, processes, and manufacturing techniques. The quality of raw materials and parameters in the production process is essential to optimize resources and reduce defects to a minimum. In this manner, getting data on the microstructural characterization of glass is decisive when needed to improve these considerations promptly to avoid waste during glass manufacturing. This work presents a method to replicate in the laboratory under controlled conditions: the float glass melting process of the flat glass industry. The aim is to establish a specific procedure, including conditions and times in an air-gas furnace having a slightly oxidizing melting-controlled atmosphere. Thus, samples of silicate glass with iron oxide (Fe2O3) were formulated using analytical grade ingredients and then were subjected to a characterization flow to discard impurities or defects. Microanalytical techniques including polariscope, dilatometry, XRF, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and SEM/EDX were used to determine residual stresses, thermal expansion, chemical composition, oxidation state, and microstructure. The residual stress was significantly reduced by controlling critical parameters during the formulation and the glass fusion step. The procedure was developed to be replicable using different parameter recipes and formulations. Keywords: Microstructural characterization, controlled conditions, silicate glass, float glass, residual stress.

Four configuration laminates made of flax, glass, and basalt were fabricated via vacuum-assisted hand lay-up with added weight and tested under ASTM D3039 and D790. The flax–glass–flax lay-up exhibited the highest tensile strength and flexural strength. Orthotropic elastic properties were determined from remanufactured 90°-rotated specimens. A hexahedral-meshed finite element model using these inputs under a 5256 N load predicted the stress and strain within 1% and 5% of the experimental values. These findings demonstrate that flax–glass hybrids offer mechanical reliability, sustainability, and affordability for next-generation prosthetic applications.