Optical Fibreglass: Composite Material

[SherlockOhms]

If you had to classify the above material under one of the below material categories which would it be?
a) Ceramic b) Composite c) Metallic d) Polymer.

 

[Danger]

Do you refer to fibreoptic strands, or some weird type of insulation, or what?
If the first, it can be glass or plastic.

 

[SherlockOhms]

I'm not too sure to be honest. It's only an intro into materials and the lecturer sent us solutions of a past paper in which he classified it as ceramic and that seemed sort of odd to me.

 

[Danger]

This is puzzling. Fibreglass as used in insulation is essentially just regular glass spun into a "wool" like candy floss. For making boats and whatnot, it's used as reinforcement for a polymer. I've never heard of it having any optical properties aside from those of any other structural material.
Fibreoptics use optically pure glass or plastic strands with specific internal reflection to transmit light from one place to another.
I honestly can't figure out how the term "ceramic" could apply to any of those. In the second instance (boats, car parts) it's clearly a polymer. (Not the glass itself, of course, but the combination of glass wool and resin is called fibreglass.)
I know that by the strictest definition, glass itself is a type of ceramic, but that is not used in any traditional communication. It's considered to be obsolete.

 

[SherlockOhms]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll just have to assume that it's a typo so.

 

[Danger]

How about you just ask the lecturer what's up, then pop back in here to satisfy my curiosity?

 

[SherlockOhms]

How about you just ask the lecturer what's up, then pop back in here to satisfy my curiosity?

Wish I could man, but we're finished up for the year and he's more than likely gone back home.

 

[Danger]

Bummer.