Abstract
Development of synthetic polymers and growth of the polymer industry during the last 100 years has been staggering. The commercial success of polymer-based products has generated a demand such that the total production of plastics (by volume) has exceeded the combined production of all metals for more than 20 years. It has been suggested that Polymer Science evolved from the following five separate technologies: (1) Plastics, (2) Rubbers or Elastomers, (3) Fibers, (4) Surface Finishes, and (5) Protective Coatings, each of which evolved separately to become major industries (Rosen 1993). As a result much of the early development of polymers or plastics was focused on these commercial products and other non-structural uses. The need to develop synthetic rubber due to the interruption of trade routes during WW II served as a catalyst to large scale federal funding for polymer research. This increased effort resulted in better understanding of the nature of polymers as well as improved analytical and experimental approaches to their behavior. In more recent years, however, polymers have become an engineering structural material of choice due to low cost, ease of processing, weight savings, corrosion resistance and other major advantages. In fact modern polymeric adhesives and polymer matrix composites (PMC) or fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP) are today being used in many severe structural environments of the aerospace, automotive and other industries.
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Brinson, H.F., Brinson, L.C. (2015). Introduction. In: Polymer Engineering Science and Viscoelasticity. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7485-3_1
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