A new edition of this standard reference work, which has been entirely rewritten and expanded to reflect major changes in polymer and plastics techology over the past 20 years, featuring articles on materials, processing, applications and engineering methods.

The potential application areas for polymer composites are vast. While techniques and methodologies for composites design are relatively well established, the knowledge and understanding of post-design issues lag far behind. This leads to designs and eventually composites with disappointing properties and unnecessarily high cost, thus impeding a wider industrial acceptance of polymer composites. Manufacturing of Polymer Composites completely covers pre- and post-design issues. While the book enables students to become fully comfortable with composites as a possible materials choice, it also provides sufficient knowledge about manufacturing-related issues to permit them to avoid common pitfalls and unmanufacturable designs. The book is a fully comprehensive text covering all commercially significant materials and manufacturing techniques while at the same time discussing areas of research and development that are nearing commercial reality.

In this report Dr Lewis surveys the current state of the art in designing with plastics, in terms of materials properties and processing technologies. He also considers the legal implications of intellectual property and product liability, as well as ergonomic and aesthetic design, parts consolidation and recyclability. His review is supported throughout by references to key processes and applications, including many well known consumer products, and further information can be derived from the 435 abstracts of published papers which complete the report.

This volume emphasizes the relationships among resin chemistry, rheology and properties for various composites manufacturing technologies. It helps engineers and scientists to select the best processing and fabrication technology that will fulfill the requirements of the composites application.

The compact, affordable reference, revised and updated The Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology, Concise Third Edition provides the key information from the complete, twelve-volume Mark's Encyclopedia in an affordable, condensed format. Completely revised and updated, this user-friendly desk reference offers quick access to all areas of polymer science, including important advances in nanotechnology, imaging and analytical techniques, controlled polymer architecture, biomimetics, and more, all in one volume. Like the twelve-volume full edition, the Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology, Concise Third Edition provides both SI and common units, carefully selected key references for each article, and hundreds of tables, charts, figures, and graphs.

This book introduces the engineer to fibres and polymer matrices, which are the components of the polymer composites for structural engineering. The authors also provide a simple guide, in tabular form, to the principal fabrication techniques, the basic design formulae, and the methods for structural composites systems and connections.