Strength, Fracture and Fatigue of Polymers

Artificial, solid plastics are to be found everywhere from cars to hearing aids to computers because they can be made with so many different useful properties. Some plastics can be made very strong, some very flexible, others very heat-resistant and each of these make the particular plastic ideal for some application or other. This versatility of plastics results from the myriad different ways their molecules can be put together and mixed up with each other. The field of Polymer Science is now quite mature and is increasingly able to explain and predict how plastics should be made to achieve a desired set of properties. This title covers the strength, deformation and fracture of polymers and how these properties are related to their chemical composition. The aim is to take the undergraduate, graduate student or industrialist through the current knowledge and understanding in this area, in a very clear, easy-to-read way that doesn't spare the detail where it is needed, but equally in a way that doesn't cloud with detail either.