The utilization of composites materials continues to expand because of their numerous advantages, including high stiffness-to-weight ratio, high strength-to-weight ratio, high damage tolerance, fatigue endurance, reliability and lower life cycle cost. Applications range from aerospace, aircraft, naval, automotive, biomedical, sports and leisure, to infrastructure components and structures. Composite materials account for approximately 25% of the weight of newer aircraft.

The development of polymer-matrix composites has been driven to a large extent by high performance military and aerospace applications. This usually involves slow labor intensive processing techniques and results in high cost components. The high cost of composite materials, particularly the lack of cost effective fabrication processes, is the single most significant barrier to their more extensive utilization. To overcome this barrier, low-cost and high-speed design and manufacturing methods and processes are needed.

The finished product must be free of defects ( voids, cracks, fiber waviness ), uniform in properties, fully cured ( having expected properties, e.g., stiffness, strength, fatigue endurance ), and reproducible. Regarding the process itself, temperature distribution must be reasonably uniform throughout the part, temperature must not exceed preset values, voids and residual stresses must be minimized, and complete and uniform cure must be accomplished in the shortest possible time.